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Women and girls are mad about soccer too

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If you were to sit down and watch an afternoon of football on television, with the advertisements and all else that goes with it, you will quickly notice that it’s aimed at a very male audience.

The notion that football is a "guy’s game only" is dated and a bit insulting. It’s not enough that women are included as presenters and pundits, though I’m always happy to see them on the small screen.

South African sports broadcasters have a good line-up of women presenters and reporters including the very popular Carol Tshabalala and Julia Stuart.

Bearing all of this in mind, it’s high time that women start being recognised as a huge market within the football industry and not just be dragged out and showcased around Women’s Month in August to show "diversity".

However, South African football isn’t just something that happens on TV. It is often the glue that binds community groups together, and these are often lead by women.

One of these community groups is the Soccer Laduma Supporters Club, launched last year, and many of the branch leaders are female.

One of our national Supporters Club committee members (and renowned Kaizer Chiefs fan) is Fefe "Mama Fefe" Sonti, who agreed with me that women need to be more visible in soccer. "There’s lots of women in football, we love it too much," she said.

"Being active in this community has helped me grow as a person, and even the youngsters come to me for advice like soccer development and what trials to attend."

"I would like to see more women being utilised in other areas such as match officiating. It is currently too male-dominated," Mama Fefe said.

More of them have to become analysts and commentators as well, offering opinions and ideas about the game, even at administrative and executive level.

It’s crazy that we don’t see more female representation, given that a big part of the audience and organisers are female.

Women read about soccer in big numbers as well. In 2014, Soccer Laduma had a weekly circulation of about 310,000, of which 41, 540 were female.

The Soccer Laduma Facebook page, with it’s 1 million fans, boasts a female audience of 13%, that’s 130, 000 women who are mad about the beautiful game!

SAFA, the PSL, advertisers and brands, clubs and even broadcasters, can certainly do more to ensure inclusivity amoungst the fairer folk.

After all, let’s not forget who runs the world!

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