Don't believe the hype ⋆ An Old International

Don’t believe the hype

Public Enemy certainly have nothing on their minds with football but it is a fitting headline for the next big tournament due to start in a few days time: The Women’s Football World Cup in Germany.

While the media attention has been rising over the last weeks, where there was some neat product placement on one of the most popular and successful drama series in German TV Tatort for the competition, some commentators point out that it is not comparable with the men’s game. Rightly so. And the hype surrounding it, is certainly not always helping the cause. Things get worse though, when the players decide to go naked, like a number of German players have done for the German edition of playboy magazine. All attempts to emancipate the women’s game from the male counterpart seem to be in vain, when a series of photographs confirms just the old stereotypes that men have about the female version of the game. That the head of the German FA Theo Zwanziger is an outspoken friend of the game, can not hide the fact that football played by women in Germany despite its success and popularity remains a niche sport. For a while the sport will get some limelight and attention but soon it will return to the well-trodden path of a sport clichéd with sexism and male fantasies, hoping to find its own way in the sporting world.

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