Why Does Female Football Require the “Women” Suffix?

Watching the FA Women’s Super League football today, I noticed that all twelve teams have “Women” at the end of their team name, it’s surely not required.

I can’t for the life of me see why there is a need to differentiate between the male version and the female version – to me the difference is obvious.

Let’s start with the FA itself. The league is called the “FA Women’s Super League“. Why? There is no other professional football league in the UK called the “Super League”, so surely it doesn’t require the “Women’s” bit in the title. I could very easily distinguish between the FA Premier League (men’s) and FA Super League (women’s) without the need for the clarification.

The same goes for the actual football teams themselves. I don’t see why there is a need to tack on the word “Women” to the end of the team name. It’s obviously to differentiate the female team from the men’s team, but ultimately it is the same club, right?

I really struggle to see how anyone purchasing tickets to watch a football match are either going to be confused when purchasing the tickets, or be confused over what competition those tickets are for. If I was buying tickets to see Manchester United V Chelsea in the FA Super League for example, it would be quite clear that I’m going to watch the women’s team.

Why is it clear? Well, the women’s team play in the FA Super League. The men’s team plays in the FA Premier League.

It’s obvious there is still a massive disparity in pay between the two genders – a true and very public gender pay gap – but with that said, interest in women’s football has seen exponential growth in the last decade.

Super League matches are starting to become commonplace at the main stadia of clubs – something which should be a permanent fixture.

It is now the time to abandon the need to differentiate a women’s team from its male counterpart, and female competitors in the sport of football to wear their shirts with pride, representing a club, not a variation of it.

Either that, or the FA Premier League needs to tack the word “men’s” onto the end of every team that also has a female equivalent.