Beyond all reasonable doubts, men’s football will forever dominate the world as the game that attract the attention of billions of sports fans around the world as against the international tourneys of their female counterparts that only manage to win the interest of just a few number of football enthusiasts.
Patronage and media publicity on the ongoing FIFA Women’s World Cup U-20 tournament in Germany has been nothing to write home about as compared to what the world witnessed in the just ended Men’s World Cup in the rainbow country, South Africa (South Africa 2010).
Perhaps, this confirms assertions in some circles that even if given 100 years women’s football would forever remain in the wilderness.
The story, as I closely monitored, was however not different from the male Under 20 World Cup, which was held in Egypt last year as millions of football fans stay glued to their television sets to watch matches and post matches analysis amidst massive jubilation when ever Ghana scored.
Public servants, business owners and traders were seen abandoning their work places all in the name of beating the hectic traffic in town to enjoy matches of the Black Stars and even games that involved countries like Brazil, Holland, Argentina and Germany because they were seen as the trail blazers in world soccer.
But, the same thing obviously cannot be said about what we are currently witnessing in Germany. It would interest readers to note that when I took it upon myself as a journalist to go round some areas in Accra and ask a cross-section of Ghanaians what they think the technical handlers could do to improve upon the performance of the Black Princesses after their game against their USA counterpart last Wednesday which ended in 1-1draw, most of the respondents could not even mention the name of the coach than going further to mention the name of skipper of the team.
That notwithstanding, some of them could also not tell when our girls would be playing their next game. “Oh what a country we live in. I do not blame you because most of the media houses have refused to give attention to the tournament as they did during that of the Black Stars”, I said to myself.
And at a point I had to stop because the interviewees were not on top of issues meaning that I was engaged in what I will describe as “Cause 90 job”.
“In soccer you do not have to miss any of the scene because this only comes once in a life time and I there is no way I can afford to miss the beginning of the match”, a trader reportedly told his customers when he refused to attend to them because he had to quickly rush home to watch the Black Stars game against USA some weeks ago.
Indeed, there is no shred of doubt that the men’s football has come of age and nothing could be done under the circumstances to reverse the trend.
Considering the time during which the male football tournament came into existence, that is in the 1930s as against the women football that came in the lime light in 1999, the large crowed for me is not out of place at all.
Me thinks what we should all endeavour to find answers to is what can be done to improve on the game and patronage. Are we going to hear from the government soon that some fans of the respective supporters union will be flown to Germany to cheer our girls on like we saw in South Africa? Or are we going to see President John Evans Atta Mills himself going there to boost the morale of the team like he did when the Black Stars were playing?
Even though the Ghana Football Association has shown some level of commitment and support by helping to ensure the qualification of the team, I still believe there is still more that we can do as a nation to support the team as it has roundly been accepted by football connoisseurs that the support base of every team in a match plays a major role in the victory of that particular team.
Drawing the curtains down on this article, I will seize the opportunity to urge my fellow women to be the trail blazers in our quest of galvanizing support for our women’s team talk about the Black Queens, Black Princesses and the Black Maidens.
ARTICLE: ROSE AMI KPOGOH, JAYEE INTERN
