Women’s football needs to be treated with respect

Bantwana Bantwana made history by becoming the first South African women’s national team to represent the country in a Women’s World Cup. The fact that it is in the under-17 level means that there is hope for women’s football in the near future, provided that these girls do progress to Banyana Banyana.

Even though the girls didn’t perform as well as they would have liked (on Wednesday they were humiliated 10 – 1 by Germany ) I’m sure they learned some valuable lessons from the tournament and the country must be proud of them.

Next month Banyana Banyana, the senior women’s national team will host the African Women’s Championship. The top two teams from that tournament will earn themselves places in next year’s Women’s World Cup in Germany. I am worried that once again our girls might miss out on that opportunity. Their recent performance against Cameroon left a lot to be desired, our team was outplayed by the Indomitable Lionesses despite showing a lot of determination.

In that game Banyana were without some of their regulars, but so was Cameroon. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming the team or the coach for the loss, they did their best and it was merely just a friendly, but it was another painful reminder of how far behind we still are when it comes to the women’s game.

To Safa and some sponsors’ credit, there are efforts to uplift women’s football and that needs to be applauded, the likes of Absa, Sasol, FNB as well as the programme at the High Performance Centre are good examples of great work that is being done. What we need now is a professional or at least a semi-professional women’s league where the best will compete against the best regularly.

Another concern is at the grassroots level, more young girls must be recruited and trained by qualified coaches at an early age, frankly, what is done for the men’s game must be done for the ladies game as well.

Women’s football needs to be treated with more respect.