frbleus1-9, Exercise 3: "Women's football is new in France"

Model answer (check the details):

What undermines it: women's matches in France in the 1910s and 1920s (Fémina Sport), the Dick, Kerr Ladies tour of 1920, the championship and national team of the 1970s, and Reims's women playing in the unofficial World Cup in Mexico in 1971 before large crowds. The Vichy ban of 1941 shows that the sport was important enough to be restricted.

What supports it: the modern, professional women's game, with big television audiences, top-flight leagues and high salaries, is much more recent. The growth of Lyon since 2004 and the 2019 World Cup in France are developments of the last 20 years.

Conclusion: the claim is wrong as a history but partly right about the professional and televised game. A careful sentence: "Women's football in France has a history of over a century, but its professional and televised form is recent."

Evidence to use: contemporary newspapers (for example on Gallica), the federation's records, club histories of Reims and Lyon, and academic work on women's sport.

Care: dates in the early period vary between sources. Check each.