Arguments Against Mixed Football

Introduction

The Football Association (FA) has been under pressure to allow girls to play in the same teams as boys since 1978, following 12-year-old Theresa Bennett’s application to play with boys in a local league. In 1991, the FA agreed to introduce Rule C4 to permit males and females to play together in competitive matches under the age of 11. Campaigns from groups such as the Women’s Sport Foundation, made the FA agreed to trial mixed football for the under-12 to under-15 age categories to establish the risk of injury to players in sex-integrated competitions. A series of changes followed: between 2010 and 2014, the age at which mixed football was permitted increased from U11 to U16. In 2015 the FA announced the decision to raise the

Football for males began a long time ago and has continued to grow and develop because of the amount of backing and funding it has received over the years by different federations: the contemporary history of the world 's favourite game spans more than 100 years. It all began in 1863 in England, when rugby football and association football branched off on their different courses and the Football Association in England was formed - becoming the sport 's first governing body (FIFA 2018). On the other hand, women’s football has a long history where they have fought for their freedom to play football. Boxing day, 1920 saw the biggest number of spectators attend a game with a crowd of 53,000 inside Goodison park and many more locked outside (Association, n.d.). Despite this in 1921, the FA announced that football was unsuitable for women (Jones and Edwards 2013), and even after the success and popularity of women’s football during the First World War, the FA Council instructed its member clubs to stop any female players from using officially sanctioned Football League grounds (Williams and Woodhouse 1991; Williams 2003). This decision signalled the FA’s disapproval of women’s football and, according to Williams (2003, 33), was part of ‘…the League and Association’s continued attempts to recoup and defend a masculine image for football’. The ban was removed in 1971 because of mounting international pressure (Griggs and Biscomb 2010; Williams and Woodhouse 1991), and the FA outlined its plans to develop the woman’s game from grassroots to elite in 1997 (FIFA 2018). Women’s football today has shown to have the top participation of women in sport in England and has led to significant changes such as the launch of a women’s super league in 2011 but it was another 4 years before the FA’s rule on mixed football was called into question