There is a strange switch that flips in some men’s brains the moment a woman mentions she watches football. One second you’re discussing a match, and the next you’re being interviewed for a position you never applied for. Suddenly, the questions start coming. Do you know the offside rule? Can you name all the positions? Which team do you support? How long have you been watching? It’s as if football fandom comes with an entrance exam, but only if you’re a woman.
The funny thing is that these questions are rarely asked out of genuine curiosity. They’re usually designed to determine whether you belong in the conversation at all. Somewhere along the way, football became one of those things certain people decided women needed to prove themselves worthy of enjoying. Apparently, simply saying “I watch football” isn’t enough. Evidence must be provided. References may be required.
Maybe I find this particularly amusing because football isn’t some new interest I picked up last week. I started watching football when I was nine years old while living in Spain, a country where football isn’t just a sport but practically a way of life. It was everywhere. It spilled out of homes, cafés and television screens. Conversations somehow found their way back to football. Match days felt different. People cared. Naturally, I cared too.
Like millions of children around the world, I picked favourite players, followed teams, celebrated victories and suffered through defeats that somehow managed to ruin my mood despite having absolutely no impact on my own life. That’s football. It gets under your skin and stays there. So when someone asks whether I actually understand what’s happening on the pitch, I always wonder how many years of watching are required before we’re officially allowed to qualify as fans.
What makes these interactions even more entertaining is that the offside rule has somehow become the universal test for female football supporters. Every woman who watches football has encountered it at least once. The question is usually delivered with great confidence, as though the entire sport can be reduced to this one rule. Yet football fans themselves spend half their lives arguing over offside decisions. Entire stadiums celebrate goals before discovering they don’t count. Commentators replay incidents from six different angles while trying to explain what happened. Let’s not pretend this is the flawless gotcha some people think it is.
There is also a persistent belief that women only watch football because of the men in their lives. A boyfriend introduced them to it. A husband watches it. A brother got them interested. While that may be true for some people, it is hardly the universal story many assume it to be. Plenty of women discovered football the same way men did: by watching it and enjoying it. It’s really not that complicated. Nobody handed us a football starter pack and told us we could only participate under male supervision.
The bigger question is why football remains one of the few interests people still feel comfortable gatekeeping. Nobody sees a man watching a romantic comedy and immediately demands a detailed analysis of the genre before allowing him to enjoy the film. Nobody asks him to name every character or explain the evolution of storytelling tropes over the last twenty years. Yet women often find themselves having to prove they know enough before their interest in football is taken seriously.
The irony is that football’s appeal has always been its universality. It’s the world’s game precisely because it belongs to everyone. Some fans can spend hours discussing tactics and formations. Others live for the atmosphere, the rivalries and the drama. Some know every statistic imaginable. Others couldn’t tell you who scored in a match three weeks ago. None of that makes someone more or less of a fan. The beauty of football has never been about passing a knowledge test. It’s about caring enough to keep coming back.
So, for those still determined to gender a sport followed by billions of people, perhaps it’s time to stop. Women are not a new addition to football culture. We are not visiting guests. We are not here on behalf of the men in our lives. Many of us have been watching, supporting, celebrating and complaining about football for years.
And the next time a woman tells you she watches football, resist the urge to turn the conversation into an unexpected quiz show. Chances are she knows exactly what’s going on. And even if she doesn’t know every tactical detail ever recorded, that’s fine too.
After all, nobody should need to pass an exam just to enjoy a game.
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