A few weeks ago, just after Arsenal won the Premier League for the first time in 22 years, I was sporting my team’s football shirt. The hurt, the anticipation, the nail-biting; it was all over. The trophy was ours, and it felt like not only was North London red, but the entire country too. Pairing the pink and blue (Stella McCartney) edition of the kit with a pink cowboy hat to attend the UK’s largest LGBTQ+ pop festival, I was displaying all aspects of my personality as a proud, bisexual football fan. But as I entered the event, I was stopped in my tracks by a security guard telling me to name my favourite players. ‘Rice, Trossard, Williamson, Bergkamp, Russo’ I told him, irked by the obvious assumption that I was a glory hunter or fake fan, and suspecting I’d been singled out for questioning because I was a woman. ‘Oh, good,’ he replied. ‘I asked another girl earlier who was wearing the shirt, and she had no idea we’d made it to the Champions League final.’
The Mansplaining Problem
This evening, England will play their first match at the men’s World Cup. As ever, there have been tentative hopes it’ll come home, with fans displaying St George’s Crosses in front gardens and the Three Lions on their chests. But for some women, there’s a quiet anxiety about wearing their country’s shirt, as it often means attracting unwelcome comments or having their loyalty to the team questioned. Because whether you’re a die-hard or casual watcher, enjoying football as a woman inevitably means having the beautiful game mansplained to us.
In 2022, the boys in Freya Ward’s class at school cottoned onto the fact she was a lifelong Nottingham Forest supporter. They could’ve bonded with her over it, discussing the team’s recent promotion to the Premier League, which the then 15-year-old had watched at Wembley. Instead, they interrogated her, and asked her to ‘name five players.’ Freya, a social media executive for the UK’s biggest independent publisher of women’s football content, She’s A Baller, tells Metro: ‘My dad’s a huge Nottingham Forest fan, so I grew up with it. Football’s always been in my life. I come from a dance background, which I think is almost why I’ve experienced people thinking that I can’t be into it. I’m very fortunate that I’ve grown up in an environment where it’s just normal for me to like football as a girl.’
The women’s game wasn’t really on Freya’s radar when she was younger (something she puts down to historic media coverage of the sport) until England’s cataclysmic 8-0 win against Norway during the 2022 Euros cemented her interest. ‘It really turned my head,’ says the 19-year-old. ‘From then, I was absolutely hooked.’ However, attending matches and honing her knowledge didn’t stop male classmates from throwing jibes Freya’s way. ‘They’d put you on the spot and make you feel like so much less of a fan,’ she reflects. ‘It never made me feel great, because they didn’t say that to the boys.’ Once, she was asked if she’d ‘actually watched’ the latest Nottingham Forest game, as though a whole life’s worth of support wasn’t enough. She says: ‘It’s such a universal experience for so many girls and women who follow football. It carried on, little comments here and there. I was walking into one of my exams, and one of the boys turned around to me and went: “women’s football’s rubbish.” You can watch the men’s game and you still get asked all these questions; you watch the women’s game and you get told that it’s not good. It never made me feel particularly welcome. All I wanted to do was have a conversation about the game. It does stick with you.’
Widespread Issue
It’s a widespread issue Freya isn’t alone. Posts seeking safe spaces to watch England play are circulating on social media, and a number of women have even shared examples of their own partners overexplaining basic football concepts. Let’s be clear: it’s not all men. But all it takes is one offhand comment, or one sarcastic question, to slyly undermine the positives — and to make women feel unwelcome within the fandom.
This assumption that women can’t enjoy the beautiful game, always tinged with a sprinkle of misogyny, isn’t just happening to supporters either. A 2025 report from Women In Football found 78% of women working in the sport have experienced discrimination based on their gender, while 63.5% have been subjected to sexist banter. An upsetting 56% said no action was taken after they reported what happened. In another study, published by Kick It Out in 2024, more than 50% of female football fans said they’ve been subjected to sexism on match days. Many have been questioned on their knowledge, with 48% reporting sexist language being used in the stands.
How Mansplaining Impacts Relationships
BACP-accredited psychotherapist Georgina Sturmer tells Metro: ‘Mansplaining conjures up an image of a man explaining concepts to a woman without taking into account the fact that they may well already know exactly what’s being explained — or may know better. The thing about mansplaining is that it isn’t neutral. It often comes from an assumption of power, and it’s often delivered in a way that lands as patronising or belittling.’ Georgina notes that following football is often an intrinsic part of our identity, and reflects a ‘sense of community.’ As such, if we feel we’re being asked to ‘prove’ our knowledge, there’s an ‘implicit enquiry to prove that we belong.’ When this comes from a stranger, she says ‘it might trigger a sense of annoyance, irritation, or defiance’. But as a number of women have attested to, partners and friends can be guilty of it too — which makes it more pernicious.
‘When we’re in a relationship, we hope that our partner pays attention to our interests, and to our knowledge,’ Georgina explains. ‘And so this type of mansplaining isn’t just an annoyance. It might also be a sign that they don’t really value or recognise what we care about.’ So, at some point across this tournament, you might find your England shirt becomes a fierce topic of debate in the pub. Equally, you might sit across from a Hinge date as they explain that you can’t be offside from a throw-in or quiz you on stats. By way of reply, you could consider it a microfeminist act to explain that, yes, you’re aware of these things; it’s a basic principle of football. You might throw it right back at them too, asking them to name their favourite players — ideally on the women’s squad. If their reply isn’t sufficient, consider that a sign that you need to show them the red card. Don’t even stick them back on the bench.
