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A League of Their Own


Vic

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In parts of the world where the glass is half full and not half empty, they are making great strides.

The Australian "W League" starts up this month, ironically with North American "W League" veterans Leah Robinson and Brittany Timko. The league includes teams in each of the 7 clubs/cities in the Men's A League, as well as an extra team in Canberra (the A League incidentally was brought about in 2005 by the Crawford Report).

"Sports Minister Kate Ellis confirmed that two payments of $16m will be made to the FFA (Australian Football Federation] over the next four years, upon certain conditions being successfully met. These conditions being that the FFA establish a football league for women and that the league be televised."

...

Federal Sports Minister, Kate Ellis, said that although some other women's sports might be unhappy with the government’s focus on football, they were not “picking favorites”.

"I want to make it clear we're not picking favorites, but frankly, why shouldn't there be a women's (football) league?” she said. “When you have a look at the participation rates, they're quite staggering. We want to make sure there is a solid pathway in place so these girls have role models and be encouraged to keep playing."

There are currently 100,000 registered female football players in Australia

Canada is in the 400,000 ballpark

The landmass of Canada is 9,984,670 km²

The landmass of Australia is 7,741,220 km²

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Westfield W-League officially launched

Monday, 20 October 2008

Australia’s brand new national league competition – the Westfield W-League – kicks off this weekend with eight teams from around the country participating.

“This is not only an exciting new era in women’s football, but it’s also another landmark for women’s sport,” said Football Federation Australia (FFA) CEO, Ben Buckley.

(This story ran on www.bcsoccerweb.com on October 20th!)

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^ sorry, don't read your site, not enough time in a day... do you have an rss feed? I did some digging after The Ref mentioned Timko there. She play's so great when she has that smile on her face. I really hope she's in an environment where it shines.

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I just finished looking at the link Richard provided (above) and was intrigued by this announcement.

I quote:

"The host country of the 2009 under-17 World Cup was unclear Friday after Nigeria said it could not afford the event and Mexico offered to step in.

Nigerian government and soccer officials came to FIFA headquarters in Zurich this week to explain their situation. The country is facing costs of US$30 million to prepare for the tournament, scheduled for Oct. 24-Nov. 15."

Thirty Million US to have an Under-17 Women's World Cup. Doesn't that seem high. With 24 teams participating that's over one million per team. Surely travel expenses and hotel rooms are not that expensive. Unless of course they are planning on building 2 new stadiums. Have things got our of hand to spend this much money in a country that could find a better use for that money. Wouldn't the money be better spent on player development?

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quote:Originally posted by Vic

This is a free autogenerated RSS feed of your archive page:

http://www.ponyfish.com/feeds/45025QLqHPnLT

Autogenerating one of current news off your homepage cannot be done with ponyfish and is a lot more complex. That will take some time.

I am suitably impressed, thanks! Let me know if you figure out how to create a more current feed.
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