Women’s football taking the passion out of the Beautiful Game

IT is cheap and easy to sneer at soccer players, to curl your lip because they are ignorant of Joyce and Shakespeare, to loftily deprecate the vulgarity and the flash and their insane salaries.

But which investment banker or barrister ever gave so much pleasure to so many people? Has an academic ever felt the eyes of the world on her as she lined up to take a crucial penalty?

She? Yes, you read it right. It wasn’t quite up there with the Spain-Netherlands match last year which a billion viewed live but Twitter has reported that the Women’s football World Cup final’s culmination broke the tweeting record. The gripping penalty shootout drew 7,196 tweets per second. Women’s football — with considerably less flash and lower salaries — might have arrived, we are told.