Sports Journalist of the Year: Runner-up

There’s a social media app most people are familiar with called TikTok. I searched up  women vs men football and the first thing that came up, was people making fun of how the  women play. There’s a video where a girl scored a goal but she got hit in the face and started  crying, everyone was comparing how ‘harsh’ men’s football is compared to women. They  were showing the injuries that men had and they didn’t cry, but no one even knew why the  girl was crying. She was crying because she scored the winning goal that got them into the  world cup and she was happy, she wasn’t crying because she got hit in the face.  

Do you know who the best female footballer was in 2021? Most football fans know that  Robert Lewandowski was the best footballer in 2021, but do they know who the best female  footballer was? It was Alexia Putellas and she even won the Ballon’d or that year, an event  where millions of people go to. Have you ever even heard of her before? Lewandowski’s net  worth in 2021 was eighty-five million dollars and he was the best that year, Alexia’s net  worth was between one to five million dollars and she was also the best that year. That is a  difference of eighty million dollars that Alexia didn’t get just because women get paid a lot  less than men for no reason. DFB President Fritz Keller said that “there are lower leagues that  say they’d rather pay male players more than establish a female team.” People don’t want us  in a football team just because of our gender! 

I play in a team, in Cyprus called Geroskipou Ladies FC and the other day two girls from  Somalia came to train with us and our coach told us that they weren’t allowed to play in  Somalia because they were girls. They used to hide in order to play football and not get  caught. They had to hide in order to do something they were passionate about in their own country. In P.E at school I am one of the only girls who participates in football all the other  girls don’t really participate, but at break when it’s just me they will participate and when I  asked them why they don’t participate in P.E, they said that they feel like they’ll be judged  and shouted at by the boys if they make a mistake.  In conclusion, female football is not appreciated as much as men’s and you can also see it in  the number of people attending a football game. The highest attendance in a female game was  60,739 and the highest attendance for men was 199,854. There is no reason why women’s football isn’t appreciated as much as men. There is a survey made by dailyconnon.com on  why men are “better” at football then women and it gives the most absurd reasons why. ‘If  you don’t understand what’s going on (and you don’t) then either keep quiet or go  somewhere else – like the kitchen. I just want to watch the footy in peace’. People just assume  that we don’t know what’s going on, but we do, why would we play football if we didn’t  even know what is going on, we know what is going on!