Roaring at her: The DFB women’s footballers storm towards goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger after the decisive penalty.Image: imago images / zuma press wire
Opinion
Sometimes it is the things that not that prove that change is taking place. In the run-up to the 2024 Olympic Games, the players of the German national football team hardly talked about the one constant topic that has long accompanied the discussions: the comparison with men.
No discussions about bonuses or unequal pay. No interviews in which female players comment that women spend less time on the pitch than their male colleagues. No debates about why homosexuality is not a problem in women’s sport but it is for men.
It’s like a silent revolution that nobody talks about. But in the summer of 2024, there are many indications that women in football will have finally emancipated themselves from the overpowering things. They do their own thing, attract attention – and it is a pleasure to watch them.
Watson is now on Whatsapp
Now on Whatsapp and Instagram: your watson update! We provide you here on Whatsapp with the watson highlights of the day. Only once a day – no spam, no blabla, just seven links. Promised! Would you rather be informed on Instagram? Here you can find our broadcast channel.
Please don’t misunderstand me: No one will claim that women and men are on the same level when it comes to Germany’s number one popular sport and that all debates are over forever. But the thing is: women don’t actually need this status to be successful. And that’s good news for female footballers.
Of course, you have to expect the largest sports association in the world, the German Football Association, to pay out the same bonuses for a women’s World Cup title as for a men’s World Cup title in the spirit of equality. After all, we live in the year 2024. But in all other areas, looking at the different pay levels in the clubs doesn’t help.
National player Laura Freigang summed up the topic two years ago in the “Sport-Bild” as follows: “If we don’t bring in millions, we can’t pay out such amounts.” Dem “Spiegel” she said on the same topic: “I wouldn’t want to make millions, to be honest. That’s not what we primarily want.”
Looking back, it seems like the moment when the players wiped their mouths and decided to do their own thing from now on. And they’re doing it in an impressive way.
Jule Brand, Giulia Gwinn, Lena Oberdorf: Faces of the new generation
The young generation of players is on the verge of making lasting changes to women’s football at the highest level. The currently injured Lena Oberdorf (22), Giulia Gwinn (25), Jule Brand (21) and Freigang (26) have been doing public relations work on their own behalf in recent years and are now reaping the rewards.
They are not only outstanding athletes. They are also brand ambassadors and role models and have deliberately built up this status for themselves.
The players have managed to turn themselves into brands via social media. And in doing so, she not only attracts huge interest to herself, but also to her sport. Gwinn regularly emphasizes that she wants to be perceived as an athlete and not as an influencer, but that is actually self-explanatory in her bubble.
In addition, the biggest Instagram influencer in the world is Cristiano Ronaldo, not Taylor Swift or Kylie Jenner. It’s just that no one would think of accusing him of profiting from his looks and popularity.
The female soccer players would be pretty stupid if they didn’t play the social media game. And each player can decide for themselves how they fuel Tiktok and Instagram.
In the case of the DFB team, the association has also understood how to present its athletes in a way that is effective for the public off the pitch. The best example is a video that Jule Brand and Laura Freigang recorded in Marseille:
The two players, known for their humor and authentic manner, walked through the city and talked about important and rather unimportant, but amusing things.
The watson editorial team could see that the plan was working: 15 minutes after the video went online, our colleague had five suggestions for topics for the clip. Brand and Freigang spoke about the injured Lena Oberdorf, the unusual quirks of their roommates, the nervousness before the nomination, the somewhat strange communication from coach Horst Hrubesch and the beds in the Olympic Village that were too wobbly for sex.
The result was: We wrote two texts about the DFB women and omitted two reports from the men’s Bundesliga that we actually had on our list.
The DFB women’s plan worked. Not only with us, but also on Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube, where the videos and individual snippets from them generated several million views.
Laura Freigang at Eintracht Frankfurt: identification figure of the club
And what works during the Olympic Games also works on a somewhat smaller scale at the clubs: Laura Freigang is one of Eintracht Frankfurt’s biggest identification figures, Lena Oberdorf is not only a sporting role model but also a style icon, Jule Brand puts VfL Wolfsburg in the spotlight. The players thus reach millions of potential viewers and, more importantly, young girls and teenagers who see that a female footballer no longer has to hide from any male footballer.
And the development is far from over. The generation of young players will continue to play this game, which US athletes in particular understood much earlier, for another decade, and younger female footballers will follow suit. And suddenly there are advertising contracts, cooperation opportunities and an interest in women’s football that was unthinkable for a long time.
On Saturday evening, FC Schalke 04’s second division match was broadcast on Sport1 on free TV. Only 330,000 people wanted to watch the match. At the Olympic match between Germany and Canada, the number peaked at almost seven million people. The fact that this generated almost no headlines speaks volumes: Nobody is surprised anymore because, after all the struggles of their predecessors, female footballers have finally arrived in the mainstream of society.
All of this also has to do with the fact that women’s football as a whole has developed further, that the teams today are at a completely different level than they were 15 or 20 years ago, that the environments have become (at least somewhat) professionalized, that people have gradually overcome their reservations about women’s football. But it is also the merit of a generation that is no longer interested in comparing itself to men and prefers to concentrate on itself.
If an Olympic medal is won at the end, it will certainly help with advertising.
