The Women's Association Football Portal
Women's association football, more commonly known as women's football or women's soccer, is the team sport of association football played by women. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries, and 187 national teams participate internationally. The same rules, known as the Laws of the Game, are used for both women's and men's football.
After the "first golden age" of women's football occurred in the United Kingdom in the 1920s, with one match attracting over 50,000 spectators, The Football Association instituted a ban from 1921 to 1970 in England that disallowed women's football on the grounds used by its member clubs. In many other nations, female footballers faced similarly hostile treatment and bans by male-dominated organisations.
In the 1970s, international women's football tournaments were extremely popular, and the oldest surviving continental championship was founded, the AFC Women's Asian Cup. However, a woman did not speak at the FIFA Congress until 1986 (Ellen Wille). The FIFA Women's World Cup was first held in China in 1991 and has since become a major television event in many countries. (Full article...)
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The 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup was the first FIFA Women's World Cup, the world championship for women's national football teams. It took place in Guangdong, China from 16 to 30 November 1991. FIFA, football's international governing body selected China as host nation as Guangdong had hosted a prototype world championship three years earlier, the 1988 FIFA Women's Invitation Tournament. Matches were played in the provincial capital, Guangzhou, as well as in Foshan, Jiangmen and Zhongshan. The competition was sponsored by Mars, Incorporated, maker of M&M's candy. With FIFA still reluctant to bestow their "World Cup" brand, the tournament was officially known as the 1st FIFA World Championship for Women's Football for the M&M's Cup.
It was won by the United States, whose captain April Heinrichs formed a forward line dubbed the "Triple-Edged Sword" with Carin Jennings and Michelle Akers-Stahl. Jennings was named player of the tournament while Akers-Stahl's ten goals won the Golden Shoe. The United States defeated Norway 2–1 in the final in front of a crowd of 63,000 people at Guangzhou's Tianhe Stadium. Total attendance for the tournament was 510,000, an average per match of 19,615. In the opening match at the same stadium, Norway was defeated 4–0 by hosts China. Chinese defender Ma Li scored the first goal in Women's World Cup history, while goalkeeper Zhong Honglian, also of China, posted the first official "clean sheet" in the tournament. (Full article...)Selected image
![Kuwait women's national football team, 2012](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Kuwait_women%27s_football_team_2012.jpg/360px-Kuwait_women%27s_football_team_2012.jpg)
Members of the Kuwait women's national football team line up prior to their friendly match against Qatar, 2012.
More did you know -
- ... that the Brunei women's national football team is forbidden from participating in the Olympic Games by its country's government? (23 June 2012)
- ... that Ellyse Perry played both cricket and soccer for Australia at the age of sixteen? (20 February 2008)
- ... that Trabzonspor were the first Turkish soccer team entitled to participate in the UEFA Women's Champions League? (19 September 2009)
- ... that Canada striker Christine Sinclair was named one of the 25 most influential people in Canadian sports before she turned 20?
- ... that Netherlands Antilles women's national football team faces development challenges because football is only the sixth most popular sport in the country? (26 May 2012)
- ... that sisters Ada and Andrine Hegerberg scored one goal each when the Norwegian team won 2–1 against Canada in the 2012 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup? (27 September 2013)
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![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that Ellaisa Marquis has been called the "marquis player" of women's football in Saint Lucia?
- ... that Rashida Beal was named 2016 Big Ten Defender of the Year after the Minnesota Golden Gophers won that year's conference tournament?
- ... that soccer player Danielle Marcano scored four goals in back-to-back games that helped to send the University of Tennessee to the NCAA tournament quarterfinals for the first time in history?
- ... that English women's footballer Shameeka Fishley scored a hat-trick in her newly-established Turkish team's first match?
- ... that horses were responsible for delaying the deciding match of the Barcelona women's football team's 1973 winning season?
- ... that the 2012 Olympic women's soccer semifinal between the Canadian and the American national teams was called "the greatest knockout match in major-tournament football" since 1982?
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- Join: Add your name to the members list of the Women's football taskforce
- Contribute: Check the Taskforce's Open task list and see if there's a task you would like to contribute to.
- Assess existing articles: (see WP:WPFA for assistance) or nominate some of our existing B-class articles for Good Article (GA) or Featured Article (FA) status
- Improve existing articles: Work on expanding articles in Category:Women's association football biography stubs with relevant content and citations
- Project Tagging: Tag the talk pages for any articles that are within the scope of this project with {{Football|Women = yes}} and {{WikiProject Women's sport}}.
- Translate: the page of clubs/players from corresponding articles in other language Wikipedia articles to English Wikipedia, if we have them as red links.
- Recruit: editors who have contributed to articles related to women's football
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