JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's female football team will be coached in etiquette and given tighter T-shirts in a drive to soften their image and attract sponsorship ahead of a 2007 World Cup bid.

A top women's football official said on Wednesday that female players who dressed and acted like men were giving women's football a bad name and needed to nurture their feminine side by wearing more shapely kit and sitting like ladies.

"They need to learn how to be ladies," Ria Ledwaba, head of the women's committee at the South African Football Association 9AFA) told Reuters. "At the moment you sometimes can't tell if they're men or women."

The national team would be given a more shapely kit to emphasise their femininity on the pitch and would swap dowdy track suits for skirts and jackets when travelling.

"Obviously they can't wear skirts on pitch... but they will be given outfits made for women, with female shirts that are shaped for breasts," Ledwaba said.

SAFA would also hold etiquette workshops to turn the players -- often plucked from the streets of South Africa's sprawling townships with no schooling -- into "national assets".

"We need to teach them etiquette and the importance of being a role model," said Ledwaba. "There are mothers out there who won't let their daughters play football because they think they'll start acting like boys."

The efforts to soften the team's image are part of a drive to attract hot new talent to the team, which has never competed in a world tournament, and to lure sponsors ahead of the 2007 women's World Cup.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter last year courted controversy when he urged women players to wear tighter shorts to distinguish them from men.

personally i think this is all bull. Women don't need to do this to get more people attracted to the game. I mean ettiquette classes, how the hell is this supposed to help a girl on the football field.





Very true, but girls who play football can be very FEMINIME. I saw this bit on tv about kara lang, and let me tell you, she does not act like a boy all the time. She relishes being a girl. The only reason people think they'll become so called "MACHO" is because the game can become quite nasty with all the pushing and tackling

I agree with mew. This all seems ridiculous and yeah, why etiquette lessons? It seems like a complete waste of time to me! They would be better off spending time learning/sharpening their football skills instead of learning how to "sit properly".

Just let them be comfortable in any aspect of their lives. They can be role models on the field. Whatever happens off the field, I don't really care about to be honest.

tighter shirts will pull in more male viewers.. it's a smart move. simple as that.

the truth is most men find it hard to even watch 10mins of a women's game after watching real vs barca...

Um, if men don't watch it now... i'm sure they'll still find it hard to watch it even if they do wear tighter shirts. I'm a woman and even I can agree that after watching a Real v Barca match the women's game wouldn't be as entertaining. But I love the sport, and I love the women's game so i'll watch it no matter what. Especially since women's football isn't televised nearly as much as i'd like.

I'm a man who simply loves sport and i'll watch any kind of match in any kind of sport and at any level, but watching any level of women's game wouldn't be as entertaining as watching El Clasico, but the truth is I'd still watch it. Many men would disagree and only stay on after the El Clasico footage if the women players were running around in tight shorts and acting as the lady footballers that they are being made into.

For now, it seems key to utilise any method possible to attract viewers, sponsors etc. to the womens game, and the only way that women's football institutions can change this is by trying to improve the standard of play, which at the current time is a big distance behind the men's game. Improvements and changes must be implemented to the womens game to make it more of a viewers sport, smaller pitches, different size ball/goals etc. may all help to achieve this, but until this occurs the women's game will have nowhere near the popularity of the men's and 'sexing the game up' seems the only way to get through to the masses.

It's worked wonders in tennis and I don't feel the lady players are any worse off. In my opinion it's raised the level of play as well as the popularity of the sport, the players are happy and the fans are happy. A similar approach to women's football may have the same affect and if the players are happy to do so then why not?



EDIT: Let me add to this what was stated about role-models in the opening article



Apologies to those not from the UK, but I think a similar thing occurred with the English cricket and rugby teams recently. In the build up the 2003 rugby WC there was a noticable change in the manner of the Enlish rugby teams. They were all of a sudden more gentlemenly in front of the cameras (off the pitch) and doing interviews etc. and as my dad pointed out at the time they became excellent role models for young men almost overnight. I'm not sure if this was a conscious effort from the players and management or if they had planned this change, but they went on to win the world cup (maybe fluke who knows) but they definitely inspired a new batch of young englishmen to play the game and emulate their heroes culminating in the talent available currently.

I feel a similar effort occurred during crickets Ashes series last year, when a well behaved, polite, gentlemanly England team tore apart the Aussies and played a huge part in attracting a new breed of supporter and a fresh batch of young cricketers to the game and brought the sport firmly into the limelight.

I'm not sure if this was all coincidence, but it's a fact that the England football team are not well mannered and gentlemanly and it's a fact that of recent times they have failed in similarly major competition. Maybe Sven should install a 'no-yobs' policy and who knows, during the summer the England side may emulate their cricketing and ruby player counterparts.

Worth a try from the South African ladies, it can't work any worse than Glenn Hoddle's faith healer!

Plenty of mens' teams wear tight shirts, so why the big fuss when women wear them?

Because woman got big fusses in front. I dont understand why they cant play like volleyball girls, then it would be popular, very popular.

^ ya well volleyball is'nt that popular is it?

I don't many male players wear tight t-shirts for the benefit of the spectators though, whereas in this case that is the sole purpose of the tight tops for the womens team. We are debating as to whether this is acceptable.

Well it's their choice I guess, but I don't want to hear any complaining when the TV ratings don't go up

i think that it isn't acceptable to do (have hard my mind argues taht this should be) as the idea of it is to get womans football noticed yet people wont be watching the football like they should be which was the reason for the change in tops. it needs more coverage from the big companies and better sponsors which will increase the intrest in it as a game of football rather than an exercise for the imagination


p.s nice sig mate!

hah fine then make it tighter and shorter shorts too haha them more and more men will watch it

its a bit like tennis..the only reason they get bigger audiences watching the ladies is becuase of the gear they wear ...same goes for beach volley ball i mean even guys who hate volleyball will watch it for at least 10mins to watch the girls lol

Tighter shirts or not, it will still be boring after 10min. Not much you can do to attract spectators if your level isnt up there. If I want to see hot chicks with tight clothes (or not ) there are much better things to watch than women's football.

Still. It might attract a few more players.

I don't care what gender is playing the game. I watch it because I love it! However, I must admit, Real Madrid vs. Barcelona would be more entertaining than a woman's game..

mm yer true even top women teams are quite pov to that of mens teams..lower mens teams haha sry for being biast...though there is the occasinall women who really does shine and has great skill speed and lvoe for the game..its great to watch buttt its a pity becuase 50% of the time u could mistake them for a men hahaha

Well there hasn't been a huge fuss here in South Africa where this is all taking place.

Not a big deal in my opinion.

They obivously feel this will have a knock on effect...
1. Guys will watch due to attractiveness of ladies (had to put it in nice wods there, lol)
2. They might get into it, and say something like 'oh, that was a great ball'
3. Thhey then realise there is some talent in womens football and theat its entertaining.
4. Then eventually men will be watching it for the football AS WELL as the tight clothing.

do we have any pics of these tight shirts???

Theyre south africans...they all look like men.

Man I'm getting tired of these repetative discussion boards in the womens forum. Once again a male dominated board of a governing football body thinks it acceptable to make women appear more feminine. Its a stupid decision by the South African FA, if they want to make the game more appealing, spend money on a quality technical derector...maybe they should realise the problem with the womens team is the same problem with their hopeless mens side as well.
Anyone who promotes this just because they want to watch women in tight clothing are both shovenistic and stupid. Making the women appear hot would take away from the football itself. Who cares what they wear, I'm a guy n a lot of my female friends play sport n the majority is football. If you want to watch chicks in tight clothes, change the channel to some crappy American series drama, or go to the beach!. Football is a fantastic sport and I'll watch it in any form. And, as a Real Madrid fan...nothing...compares with the Super Classica, but I have seen some damn good female football matches, especially by the U/21 Australian team, man there are some good players in that side. If they ever truely want a football loving audience, and not a peverted audience, then the standard of womens football needs to be lifted and to do that, more money needs to be spent by governing bodies, especially FIFA and UEFA who have ludicrous amounts of cash reserves. Mens football has been around for a good 150 years and its development was slow and cumbersome, womens football is relatively new and is developing much faster, so I don't think it will be long before we see Mia Hamms by the thousands.

I've made this comment one hundred times over in all the other topics. This womens forum really needs to get away from the argument of "making the women hot for a larger audience"

This is totally ridiculous. Look, this has been debated already in the United States and I'm sure elsewhere as well.

Female athletes will always have to deal with sexist men trying to exert the old arguement that no one will watch unless they are "sexed" up somehow.

The fact is that the female game, may not be as exciting as a men's game because of the pace or the skill level involved. For now.

But the fact is that that will change very soon as the level of women's football will continue to rise.

Women have to face the competition from the male side of sports which are already well established and more importantly, well financed and well attended.

I have no doubt that in the very near future, women will be making a significant mark on world football.