Women's Football Could Overtake Men's In Asia After Another Successful World Cup

Another successful women's World Cup for Asian teams "is likely to have only helped close the gap in a region where the men's game's biggest mark on the world stage is the match-fixing endemic," according to Patrick Johnston of REUTERS. At the recently concluded women's tournament, the region "shone brightly with debutantes." China and Australia made it to the quarterfinals, South Korea won its first match and reached the knockout stages for the first time, while Japan put up a "brave defense" of the title before losing 5-2 to the U.S. in Sunday's final. Eleven million TV viewers in Japan tuned in to watch the final, FIFA said, "higher ratings than any of the matches at last year's men's World Cup that did not feature the Japanese team." Japan men's striker Shinji Okazaki said this week of the women's efforts, "The fact that they got to the final shows how strong they are. We (the men) must learn from them" (REUTERS, 7/8).