BARCELONA, Spain – During an interview when Alexia Putellas, FC Barcelona’s captain and a two-time ballon d’Or winner was questioned about the standard of women’s game and whether it can ever be considered to have reached the standard of men’s football. She is captain for FC Barcelona Femeni and has won two Ballon d’Or’s.
The response she gave was a dose of reality that has been doing the rounds. She compared the journey women have taken in the sport to a story not based on ability but stolen history and a missing amount of time.
Putellas wasted no time explaining the chronological distance between both games.
“Men were playing in World Cups while women still didn’t have the right to vote,” Putellas remarked, her tone as sharp as one of her trademark passes. “You can’t compare a structure that has been built over a century with one that was effectively banned or ignored for decades.”
The data backs up her statement; the first Men’s World Cup was held in 1930 while the Women’s equivalent didn’t arrive until 1991- a gap of 61 years, with women’s football banned for significant periods in the 20th century in many nations including England and Germany.
Putellas stated that the level of the game today is a result of finance, coaching and above all time. As compared to the men who have been full-time professionals since 1900s, the females have ‘professional’ status for just about a decade. The young girls today are also receiving the same academy treatment boys have had for 80 years and “this is the first generation of women who started training with professional coaches when they were six,” she added. “Imagine in another twenty years.
