- Veteran curator Peter Higgs was linked in reports as the British Museum antiquities thief.
- Harvey Nichols boss Manju Malhotra quit after 25 years at the luxury retailer and three years as CEO.
- Netflix announced they would mark the end of their DVD business by sending up to 10 randomly selected discs to customers in a “finale surprise”.
England v Spain on Sunday is already a victory for the women’s game, according to BBC presenter Gabby Logan. The moment the USA was sent home proved international women’s football rivals the men’s in skill and tactics.
“The US team used to be so dominant purely because they were the fittest and could outrun everybody,” Logan said. “But that isn’t enough if everyone else is playing tactically. And there’s been a shift this year with Morocco, South Africa and Jamaica showing this a truly global tournament, not just for northern Europe and the US.”
So what would a Lionesses victory really mean? The Lionesses are currently in a pay dispute with the FA which they suspended for the tournament. Their negotiating position would be far stronger if they have more silverware than the men’s team – a World Cup and Euros trophy. And Australia’s captain Sam Kerr spoke for all the contestants in her post-match interview. “We need funding in our grassroots. We need funding everywhere. The comparison to other sports isn’t really good enough,” Kerr told ABC News. “Hopefully this tournament kind of changes that because that’s the legacy you leave, not what you do on the pitch.”
Strong not skinny. From the moment Chloe Kelly celebrated her Euros winning goal by whipping off her shirt and running across the Wembley turf in her Nike sports bra (and Google searches for football sports bras jumped 1,590 per cent), brands have taken note. The likes of Gucci, Oakley, Beats headphones, Cupra cars and EE have joined Nike and Adidas in sponsoring individual Lionesses. According to Tim Lopez, director of talent agency CSM Sport and Entertainment, this is down to the women’s team’s “athletic good looks” and “wholesome, less tribal, more inclusive” role model status. Male players feel laddish and risky in comparison.
No more sportswashing. Funding for women’s football in the UK has improved massively since former Lioness striker Alex Scott was signed to Arsenal and used to wash fellow pundit Ian Wright’s kit in the laundry room for some extra money. And yet the FA is currently refusing to pay the team performance-related bonuses on top of the money Fifa is paying – $30,000 (£24,000) for players in the group stage rising to $270,000 (£211,700) for each player in the winning team.
It’s important money for the players, with the average Women’s Super League player earning £47,000 per year. The men’s team have donated their World Cup pay to charity since 2007 as Premier League average weekly pay packet is £60,000 (£3.12 million per year), dwarfing the £500,000 they would each get for reaching the final. Indeed, each team that flew home after the group stage in Qatar 2022 collected more than double the cash that will be taken home by whichever team wins on Sunday.
Here we go, here we go. Five hooligans rioted after England beat Australia in the semi-final. Melbourne police had to deal with “more than 50 flares”. Small fry compared to the men’s game. Amongst the pre-match incidents at the England Euros semi-final, 50 masked men stormed the Green Man pub near Wembley, beat up England supporters and trashed the pub before mounted riot police chased them away. England fan Charlie Perry was filmed with a lit flare between his buttocks, then bribed his way into the ground.
Does it add up? Soccer is only the fifth most watched sport in Australia, behind Australian Rules Football, horse racing, rugby league and motor sports, but the England v Australia semi-final was the most watched television programme since the current TV ratings system began in 2001. When the Lionesses reached the final of the 2009 Women’s Euros they attracted 1.4 million viewers; in the 2019 World Cup their semi-final loss to the USA attracted 11.7 million; and the Euro 2022 final victory over Germany was watched by 17.4 million. The Three Lions 2022 World Cup quarter-final defeat was watched by 19.4 million.
And yet… “Whilst women’s teams should be rewarded properly and not lag behind men’s, I don’t want to overinflate the club game if clubs don’t have the gates to pay the team,” said Logan. “I’d like the women’s game’s growth not to be hyperinflated. I’d also like to see club games televised, not just tournaments.”
If you win, they will come. The team’s Euro 2022 win nearly tripled the gates at WSL games for the 2022/23 season, up from 1,944 to 5,444. Arsenal broke the WSL attendance record when they played Tottenham last September, with over 53,000 tickets sold. Arsenal Women’s average attendance last season rose from 2,882 to more than 10,500. The women’s ground Meadow Park can only welcome 4,500 spectators so the team played three games at the Emirates, each one selling over 40,000 tickets.
Earn when you’re winning. Alessia Russo has scored 14 goals for England. This season at Arsenal she might be the first female player to earn £1 million, the league’s highest earning player. The Premiership’s highest earning player Raheem Sterling has scored 20 goals for England. This year he will earn £17 million from Chelsea and an estimated £5 million in sponsorship. Guess which one has England silverware?
HAGs. The Lionesses BFs and GFs include Sheffield United player Jack O’Connell, Toulouse Olympique rugby star Olly Ashall-Boll, Stalybridge Celtic forward Joe Bunney, Manchester United’s Millie Turner, Coventry FC’s Ellie Butler and Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema. The feuds are going to be so different.
Some things never change. The official World Cup song Call Me A Lioness by Hope FC is terrible.
Read the full interview with Gabby Logan here.
