New Zealand will start their world cup campaign on Wednesday. Photo / Photosport
New Zealand will start their world cup campaign on Wednesday. Photo / Photosport
Twenty-four teams will be attempting to win the magnificently titled La Coupe du Monde Feminine, starting today as France take on South Korea, and their journeys show why this tournament is so significant.
Phil Neville, the England manager, has been full of enthusiasm for the wholehearted support his team havereceived from the Football Association. He has spoken in awe of being flown by private jet, of the supercharged amenities open to them at St George's Park, of being gifted exactly the same preparation as his male counterparts. But such backing is by no means the norm among the teams competing here.
Many of those arriving in France have done so despite rather than because of their national football organisations. Argentina qualified after a two-year period with no games, no coach and no world ranking, as the women players battled with their own FA over equal access to facilities.
Chile's FA disbanded its women's team after they failed to make it to the last World Cup and they did not play for 981 days until regrouped in time to qualify this time.
Jamaica are only here thanks to the backing of Cedella Marley, Bob's daughter, who restarted the national side in 2013 after it had not played a fixture for four years.
Even the hosts are not without issues. The Vichy law that prevented French women from playing may have been rescinded in 1971, but the fact the national women's team were asked to leave the Clairefontaine training centre last month because the men's team wanted to use the facility suggests this remains a country where priorities remain askew.
This is why this tournament carries a significance way beyond the norm.
Success here would oblige many a recalcitrant governing body to start treating the women's game with something closer to the approach it reserves for the men.
In what promises to be the biggest, most widely watched competition in the 28-year history of the Women's World Cup, this is a game that can no longer be ignored.
New Zealand start their campaign on Wednesday at 1am against the Netherlands.
