Men become the hot topic at women's World Cup

As the women's World Cup in Germany unfolds, the one topic which keeps recurring is the opposite sex. How can we get men interested in women's soccer? Do women play soccer as well as men? Are women as good at refereeing as men?

“Men downgrade the women's game, especially in Britain, and until they take it seriously it will never reach the same levels of attention as the men's game,” says White.

He and his compatriots who have traveled over to watch England play in the tournament are almost unanimous in their praise of their German hosts. They have done a wonderful job of promoting the game, they say — and to their surprise even men are turning out to watch.

“They've really embraced it here,” says John Regan, publisher of women's soccer magazine She Kicks. “At home we still have people like Andy Gray,” he adds, referring to the Sky sports commentator who was fired in January after making sexist comments to a female colleague and controversial remarks about a female referee's assistant.

But while the German media have indeed splashed the World Cup across their pages, it hasn't all been positive and much of it consists of unfavorable comparisons to the men's game.

“Women's bodies just aren't made to play soccer,” wrote Bild tabloid newspaper columnist and former soccer player Mario Basler, who claims to have seen 20 minutes of Germany's game against Nigeria before falling asleep. Women should play tennis instead, he wrote in another article, “like at Wimbledon. That's sexy!”

Meanwhile, in a lead story for one of the country's best-selling dailies, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Holger Gertz declared that: “Men almost never cry because they've been substituted,” referring to Mexican player Nayeli Rangel, who was pulled off at half-time in a game against Japan. “Men cry when their team gets knocked out, they cry for their teammates ... and they only do that very rarely,” he continued.

Meanwhile a series of refereeing errors has led some to ask whether female referees are up to the job. “I've never seen anything like it,” said Holger Osieck, the German coach of the Australian men's team, after the Hungarian referee Gyoengyi Gaal missed a glaring handball in the penalty area during a match between Australia and Equatorial Guinea.

“If the refereeing is so weak, we should think about letting men officiate matches at the women's World Cup.”

Such commentators forget mistakes in the men's game which have been more controversial — Thierry Henry's 2009 handball which saw Ireland's World Cup dream shattered by France, and England midfielder's Frank Lampard's disallowed goal against Germany in the World Cup finals last year.

The well-worn criticism of female goalkeepers was also ignited when England keeper Karen Bardsley let in a goal coach Hope Powell admitted she should have saved.

“But I've seen lots of goals conceded in men's soccer in exactly the same way,” Powell added, while the British media drew comparisons to keeper Robert Green's own goal against the U.S. in last year's World Cup.

Others see the male-dominated international soccer governing body FIFA, whose 24-member executive committee does not include a single woman, as an obstacle to the women's game.

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