The long awaited English Women’s Super League might finally take off

The FA have finally initiated the start of the new Women’s Super League in England by inviting clubs to apply for membership this month.

The Super League will run over the summer months and it promises women footballers the chance to play semi-professionally in an initial eight club competition. This number is expected to grow to a maximum of 12 clubs by 2014.

The FA will invest up to £70,000 to each club per season, with the aim of making women’s teams self-sufficient rather than reliant on their male counterparts.

Delayed start

The new women’s league was originally meant to start in March 2010, until the FA deferred its start date to summer 2011 earlier this year citing “the current global financial downturn” as a primary reason for the delay.

The fact that the FA didn’t see their investment in a Women’s Super League as “the most appropriate and meaningful” area to spend their budget, came as no surprise to the English women’s game, who have been waiting for a professional league for nearly 40 years.

The delay came as a huge disappointment nonetheless and some working in the industry doubted it would ever take off.

"I personally believe it's been shelved indefinitely," said Vic Akers, former manager of Arsenal Ladies, back in April.

"It's sad that the girls' game always seems to take the mallet over the head. We've already lost five national players to the United States, including the iconic Kelly Smith. We'll lose more, and that can't be good for the game in England."

So the FA’s latest announcement will come as a relief to the English women’s game, but whether it will stop the migration of our finest players to the United States’ Women’s Professional Soccer League (WPS) is doubtful.

WPS

• The WPS firstly pay their players so they are not forced to work 40-hour weeks along with vigorous training in their free time.

• They boast many of the world’s best female stars, most notably the Brazilian star Marta (pictured below) who was awarded the 2009 Michelle Akers Player of the Year Award in August.

Brazilian star Marta is a great attraction in the MPS

• Fox Soccer Channel and Fox Sports en Español air weekly Sunday night matches and the WPS All-Star Game with Fox Sports Net will air the semi-final and league championship contests.

By contrast, the Women’s FA Cup final in May each year is the only women's game broadcasted on national television.

The creation of the Women’s Super League aims to raise the profile of the women’s game in England and indeed to secure more sponsorship and media coverage.

The fact that the league’s schedule will coincide with the men’s game’s summer break will hopefully draw in the football starved fans.

The FA’s most promising move to date had been the awarding of central contracts to 17 English international women players in May. This decision aimed to allow the players the time to concentrate on helping England to qualify for major tournaments.

And these international sportswomen more than proved their worth by reaching the finals of the European Championships in Finland for the first time in September.

As the FA invite applications to the Women’s Super League, 2009 is shaping up to be a pivotal year in English women’s football.

Is there a place for women's football?

England internationals, Karen Carney and Kelly Smith

(Images courtesy of Spencer Jarvis)

Typically provocative, talkSPORT presenter, Adrian Durham, declared the other night on his drivetime show: “men own the game” and argued that the men’s game should remain the priority for investment.

And to a certain extent, Adrian Durham is right.

The money involved in the men's game is staggering. According to the Telegraph, the Premier League currently has a three-year overseas TV deal worth £625m.

Last season, a spokesperson for the Premier League commented before the Arsenal and Manchester United game:

“It is not an exaggeration to say it could be watched by one billion people.”

And indeed, the match was scheduled in order to maximise worldwide viewings.

The 12.45pm kick-off time between the two top English sides, meant it was being broadcasted mid-evening to the football lovers of the Far East, in the morning on the East Coast of America, making it daytime in every region in between.

The game was available to 202 countries, and the feed going into as many as 600 million homes.

Women’s game – still a growing phenomenon

In contrast, when the BBC televised the FA Women’s Cup for the first time in May 2002, the clash between Doncaster Belles and Fulham attracted over 2.5m viewers – the highest viewing figures in the history of televised women’s football in the UK at the time.

Six years on, six times FA Cup winners, Doncaster Belles, are struggling financially and the oldest club in the women’s Premier League nearly closed in September after losing their major sponsor for the past four seasons.

Certainly the financial side of the women’s game is precarious, and supporters argue for the need for greater media attention and higher levels of sponsorship to develop the game.

Adrian Durham’s point that money is better spent on the men’s game than the women’s is limiting, however, and entirely under-estimating the ability and quality of some of the players in the Premier League.

Watching Wigan’s Lee Cattermole or Bolton’s Kevin Nolan week in, week out, does not exactly inspire in contrast to viewing the skill and vision of English internationals, Kelly Smith and Karen Carney.

Kelly Smith and Karen Carney

Arsenal captain, Kelly Smith, played eight years in the highly competitive US league.

Smith was paid the highest complement by former USA head coach April Heinrichs when she asserted that Smith would be an automatic choice for the USA team if she had been eligible.

According to Wikipedia, Vera Pauw, the Dutch coach, called Kelly 'the best player in the World' after she scored a hat-trick against Holland in a World Cup qualifier in 2006.

Smith’s intelligence, movement and finishing perfectly suit her role playing behind the leading striker and linking up play.

She is reminiscent of Arsenal legend Dennis Bergkamp in her ability to pick a pass and score important goals for club and country.

See below Smith’s two goals against Japan in the World Cup in China last year:





Fellow Arsenal striker, Karen Carney, has a steely sense of gravity not unlike ex-Arsenal Belarusian midfielder Alexander Hleb.

Both players possess great ball control and continually entertain as they dribble through the opposition and set up goals with ease.

Hleb showed his dribbling skills early on when he was playing for Stuttgart in the Bundesliga:





Smith and Carney are just two players among many others – just have a look at FIFA’s shortlist for Women Player of the Year 2008 – that are incredibly talented, entertaining and fully worthy of being watched.