Australia 1 - England 3
Toone - 36'
Kerr - 63'
Hemp - 71'
Russo - 86'
There were a lot of people on the telly on Wednesday night wondering what went wrong with the Matildas in their 1-3 loss against England in the Semi-Final. This can be summed up in a few sentences. 4-4-2 met 3-5-2 on the pitch. England had an overlap in midfield. England found that they could get away with roughhousery. Tony Gustavsson was timid and didn't make whole scale changes. 1-3 sounds like a howler but really, it's one defensive error coupled with a lack of ability to smash through the midfield, to supply strikers who both looked anonymous.
What the pundits kind of hinted at but couldn't really say in the moment, was that what we saw although disappointing was an Australian Football Team in the Semi-Final of a World Cup. How ridiculous is that?! Australia didn't get bundled out of the group stage, or fail in the Round of 16, but sniffed the chance of being in a World Cup Final and were only beaten by an England side which has lost exactly once since 2017 and that was in the World Cup Semi-Final against the USA four years ago. These are the European Champions and will either be No.1 or No.2 in this tournament; while the worst that Australia can now do is 4th. I saw an Australian side not fail against Iran in Melbourne 25 years ago and in all that time, no Australian side has been in rarified air like this. This was amazing.
Probably this World Cup has caused an impact on the Australia psyche which is going to have ripples for years to come but the one question which is going to echo on and on is why female professional athletes don't make as much as money as male professional athletes. We have already had our first important moment when the then Matildas side walked out of the offices of Football Australia and refused to play the then World Champion United States because of a pay dispute but the next step involves a systemic question which nobody wants to touch with a barge pole.
What happens in October after the hype is gone? Part of the reason why there is a pay difference in this case is purely down to the fact that people don't show up at women's football games. This goes for women's sport generally. If 90,000 people will show up for Collingwood v Carlton, then why don't 90,000 people show up for the same fixture in the WAFL?
Look at the A-League Women, the WAFL, or WNRL, or even Netball. They play in front of a few hundred people week in and week out, playing their guts out and for what? Where are all the mums taking their daughters to matches? Let's make this political. Where are all of the feminists?
I might be confused but last time I checked, women actually make up slightly more than half the population. If men can stand out in the rain, bedecked in blue, yellow, red, white, then why don't women? Men are able to care about stupid things like sport, which has absolutely zero consequence in the world; why can't women? They should be going nuts.
Men will watch stupid and pointless things on television, such as motor racing and other men wailing on each other, literally punching each other into the ground, and the media companies will show this and make money through advertising. One of the delightful features about dollars is that they are perfectly fungible and the thing about business, which is what all commercial media is ultimately, is that it cares not a jot about how it makes money and profits. The television stations, both Pay-TV and Cable, will show whatever brings them subscribers, viewers, and advertising revenues. When money talks, business listens.
Women will also watch stupid and pointless things on television and because dollars are perfectly fungible, business listens there too. If people want to watch The Kardashians, Home and Away, The Voice, My Kitchen Rules, or womens' sport, media companies honestly do not care. If you won't want to watch this thing but do want to watch that thing, then the advertising revenue is likely to follow that thing.
The only reason that The Kardashians are sitting there with millions of dollars and handbags and purses and shoes and Botox, is that the money and attention already spoke and the media companies listened. You know who isn't watching The Kardashians? Men. Quite honestly, the fact that I know that a Kardashian is a person on a reality TV show that I have never seen and not an alien from Star Trek, is shameful. End the Kardashians. Stop watching.
11.15 million people watched on in abject horror as the Matildas fell apart against a well drilled and well sorted England side. You can't complain any more than men will not watch women's sport because not only was that the biggest television event in the history of Australia but 42% of people in the country watched on.
This Women's World Cup has proven comprehensively that men will watch women's sport; although, we already knew this. Sport such as Women's tennis already makes superstars out of women. Media companies and advertising already listened and that is why Serena Williams is famous. Maybe Sam Kerr is the first proper superstar of women's football in Australia but there is no good reason why Ellyse Perry or Daisy Pearce aren't, other than the money wasn't listening. How come I already knew that Courtney Vine plays for Sydney FC? Why is it that I know that Canberra United has an A-League Women's team but no equivalent men's team? If I know this, why don't you?
When we get to the 2043 Women's World Cup, will you be able to name your top five all-time A-League Women's players? If you want this, show up. Mums, take your daughters to football matches. Yell and go nuts like the men do. Take your boyfriends and husbands. This is the ground floor. Men have been caring about stupid stuff for years. Women, it's time for you to take up your position at end of the couch and yell like a nutcase at the television. It's time for you to sit down and be counted.
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