Arsenal Women midfielder Jill Roord says that the cancellation of the WSL season was ‘the right decision’ despite her disappointment at the campaign being unable to conclude. The decision was confirmed last week, with a resolution for how to decide the WSL table expected at the end of this week. On either points per game or weighted points per game, Arsenal would finish 3rd- outside of the Champions League qualification places.
“Of course I am disappointed, but I would have seen it coming,” Roord told Dutch publication NOS. “It is mainly a shame, because there was still so much possible. Now we have finished third. But there is so much going on in the world that it was probably the right decision.
The Premier League is set to restart in June, but the WSL will now not start again until September with the 2020-21 season. “That is the difference between men’s and women’s football,” Roord said. “There is a lot of money involved for the men, so that must continue, it is just like that.”
Meanwhile defender Louise Quinn was of a similar mind, telling BBC Radio Ulster, “I think they were struggling to get some of the main protocols in,” said Quinn. “In terms of where we are and where women’s football is, there is an imbalance so it was maybe something where Arsenal could have been able to deal with it and they were obviously doing that with the men’s team.
“But there are a lot of teams that maybe wouldn’t be able to support that sort of financial strain to get all the testing done and the protocols. I think our bodies have kind of switched off in that weird way, it would have been then potentially harmful to us in terms of injury.”
Manager Joe Montemurro also backed the decision, telling Arsenal.com, “It was a little expected, and I was a little bit relieved too. We needed a decision and we needed to put closure on where we were heading for a lot of reasons and anxiety problems, but also to make sure that we can plan and prepare accordingly. I think it’s the right decision and I think that now we have closure, we can all move on and prepare.”
From our perspective on Arseblog News, we will keep the Arsenal Women’s content rolling during the summer. For an in-depth discussion on the cancellation of the WSL season, Pippa and I spoke with the Guardian’s Suzy Wrack about what it means for women’s football in England and whether more could have been done.
It is kinda crazy to think that women’s preseason should start in 4 to 6 weeks. Thats pandemic timevortex – time goes so quickly and so slowly in the same time. I saw somewhere that Arsenal have to be back at 1st July, and whose coming from outside UK should self isolate for period, so I would assume that Arsenal plans to start training in about 15th of July. All those same protocols that couldn’t be worked out to resume the season, should be in place for starting training again. Seems that FA’s plan is to hope that time will… Read more »
Precisely!
And, of course, we still don’t know what is happening with Champions League.
Are UEFA suddenly going to spring the PSG quarter final on us whilst the girls (and manager) are on their inter-season downtime in different parts of the world?
Ultimately, we have to accept that although we enjoy it, women’s football in the UK is not big enough to cause the FA sleepness nights. My worry is that with the current FA attitude it never will be.
Yep and this attitude is SO stupid. Compared to mens game the investments needed to capitalize on the interest the game has, are so small. You could have whole league for the price of half of Ozil. I am sure that frauen bundesliga had more promotion in the last couple of weeks, than ever before. All FA needs is people who really care, thinking outside the box and understanding that investment usually comes before finacial success, not after. To say that game needs to make profit before investment is so so dumb. And footballs ability to profit on womens game… Read more »