Blatter, then the supreme leader of the world’s richest sport, used to boast that “I consider myself a little bit of a godfather of the organisation of women’s football”, believing he was being very progressive when he uttered the following about woman players:
This tournament, the best since it was first staged 28 years ago, can confidently be called the coming-of-age of women’s football. The Italian team, which was labelled a “bunch of lesbians” by a senior football official who was forced to quit the game, are heroes at home and abroad.Even though Banyana Banyana disappointed at the competition, this did not mean that the likes of Thembi Kgatlana and Janine van Wyk didn’t get their share of international adulation.
The numbers watching England – whose performances lift the hopes of a nation whose men’s senior side perennially underperforms at international tournaments – have averaged about 7 million.