The Archive

John Williams explains why the women's game in the UK is in need of a major overhaul

According to FIFA, 20 million women play organized football worldwide. In Scandinavia, where views about women as athletes, and almost anything else, are at least post-Jurassic, football is the most popular sport for females. Most local clubs cater for both male and female teams and foreign stars such as the USA’s Michelle Akers are brought over to join the semi-professional ranks. No surprise, then, that Norway won the recent women’s World Cup in Sweden and that they and Denmark are as tough as they come in international competition. England? Well, you reap what you sow; in Sweden we were simply outclassed by, no avoiding it now, the Germans.

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Nick Wyke looks at the efforts being made to promote women's football in Italy in the face of media indifference

Italy’s Serie A is, arguably, the most prestigious and rigorous league in world football. As a result, Italian women have a reputation to live up to. Their cause has not been helped by a media that shirks the women’s on-pitch efforts in preference for sideline gossip.

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With more Norwegian players leaving every week, Ole P Pedersen explains why the player drain to the English league is causing concern back home

I never thought I would see Norwegian footballers be a major part of English football. But there are now more Norwegian internationals than Scottish in the Premiership: cheap, solid footballers who can run all day, never drink and accept lower wages than their British compatriots.

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Dear WSC
I don’t know what the rest of you think but all the recent media coverage of the Italian national team had led me to one major conclusion: Paolo Maldini gets his good looks from his Mum’s side of the family.
Alex Anderson, Ardrossan

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Are players from abroad really good value for money?

Just the other week someone phoned up claiming to be Frankie Dettori (“you know, off the telly”) and offering a dead cert tip for the 3.30 at Wincanton. With not a moment to lose we raced out with the petty cash tin and emptied it into the hands of the nearest bookies on a horse that, wouldn’t you know it, strolled in last. So you can appreciate that we felt for Graeme Souness a few weeks back when it was revealed that the ‘George Weah’ who phoned him up to recommend Aly Dia, a Senegalese player who played for Southampton against Leeds in mid-December, was in fact Dia’s agent, and that the player had been previously hawked around several lower division clubs.

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