LISTENING TO GREAT football minds bounce off one another is fascinating.
Vera Pauw, Louise Quinn and Lisa Fallon did just that at RTÉ Sport’s Euro 2022 coverage launch yesterday afternoon.
The biggest tournament in European women’s football gets underway in England next Wednesday, with the trio confirmed for punditry duty as Ireland remain firmly on the outside looking in.
The excitement is palpable, though, as the analytical coaching, playing and punditry minds combine.
“I was fortunate enough to be over at the Women’s Champions League final in May,” Fallon, who works in the Fifa High Performance Department/Technical Division, is a renowned coach and regular TV pundit, begins.
“You can just feel how the game has developed and progressed even from the World Cup in 2019. The physicality, the speed of play, the technical capacity of the players, tactical nuances and the game intelligence; even in the in the space of those couple of years, it really has grown and it’s going to continue to do that.
I really think that women’s football now is starting to stand as its own pillar in world sport. And that’s one of the most important things, that we’re not going to be talking about the growth of the women’s game. I think we’re talking now about the development and its natural evolution.
“This is going to be potentially one of the most competitive European Championships that we’ve seen. I think there’s quite a number of teams who go into this tournament with a genuine confidence and belief that they can be there at the end of it, and have the credentials to lift the trophy. I think it’s going to be a really competitive competition, I think we’re going to see a lot of really, really good footballing sides. It’s just going to be a joy to watch it and to analyse it, and just to embrace it.”
Pauw and Quinn nod along on screen, offering their own thoughts and opinions.
The both speak brilliantly about the development of the game, the notable changes and shift. Fallon sees that on a global level.
“What strikes me most about this tournament is that we’re not going to be talking about how important this tournament is in terms of visibility anymore, I think we’re going to be talking about genuine world-class superstar footballers, and they’re going to be women,” the Dubliner adds.
“We’re going to be talking about the likes of Ada Hegerberg, Alexia Putellas, Lena Oberdorf. The world is going to see genuine football stars. Whilst the other narrative is going to be important, I think this tournament and the lens that will be on it will really open the door for people to see the growth that’s happened in the game and just how much it has developed. And that it’s no longer really a sport that is minority.
It’s not a minority support, it’s an under-funded sport. But that’s growing too. There’s serious money coming into the women’s game. And I think this will be the tournament the world sits up and goes, ‘Hmm, this is a serious, serious sport. There are serious people playing this sport. And there are serious people coaching in it.’ And I think that’s the big shift that we’ll see from this.”
Pauw, likewise, has seen quite a lot through her colourful footballing career.
The former Dutch player and well-travelled manager has been vocal on change time and time again through the years.
She, too, has a long-time involvement with Fifa, serving on the Association’s technical study group from 1999 and taking in every World Cup in that capacity until the 2015 edition.
“I’ve seen the growth of the game,” she nods. “It’s a combination. The facilities are there, the condition to develop, the opportunities to develop, growth from individuals who wanted to give everything to their sport, to a global movement that creates opportunities for all.
“And this tournament will show that when you are offered opportunities, when you create the circumstances in which players and teams can develop, then you will get top athletes and you will get top performances. I think it’s been more the women waking up the world than anything else.
“If you look at Ireland, it’s only five years ago that the brave women of our team stood up and said, ‘No longer in this way. We have the right to development.’ And action turned into an attitude from our Association that we’re not walking behind the others, but we’re taking the lead. If you look at the equal payments, the Dutch FA only now announced that they are going to give equal payments to the players only from this tournament onwards. Their plan was next year.
“So the pressure that especially Ireland has put on them, that we have never qualified for a major tournament finals, but the FAI has said, ‘It’s time for the right on equal development opportunities for both men and women, boys and girls, it should not be gender related.’ And that example has shown the way to the Dutch FA, for example, and others will follow.
“And that means that it’s more than just the performance, it is the right of development, it is the right of equal opportunities. It’s not up to anyone else to tell a girl if she cannot have equal opportunities because it’s football. It is not up to any anyone else to tell the girl, ‘If you would go to another sport, you would get better facilities,’ it is up to the Associations to create gender equality. And the brave women in Ireland stood up in a time that nobody stood up. We all accepted, as Lisa said, that we were a minor sport, even though we were already for ages, the biggest sport in the world for women.”
“And I think that that is something that we can be proud of,” Pauw continued with a smile.
“Our players are giving everything to show Ireland and Irish girls, if you have a dream, if you go for it, then you get something. And if you’re not treated equally, you have to stand up for yourself. And I think that message is so much more powerful than the tournament.
“The tournament will just reinforce that. And I think that the outcome of this tournament, the fact that [RTÉ will] broadcast every single game, will show the sportspeople in Ireland that our Women’s National League needs more support, needs more money to grow together with all the facilities that have been created by others.
“And that in itself, I think will be a massive improvement.”
That it will, indeed.
Lots done, more to do.
