ManU’s decision to launch a professional women’s team "should be applauded," Luke Edwards wrote in an opinion piece for the London TELEGRAPH. Quite frankly, "it is also about time." It has been a "stain on the reputation of the world’s richest football club that it did not have a women’s team." ManU has had the money to do so "but dragged their feet for reasons unknown." It has made the club "look old-fashioned and reactionary, which is not helpful for a brand that is constantly striving to be dynamic, in order to open new revenue streams." ManU "will not make a lot of money out of women’s football, not in the short term at least," but to have ignored the sport’s growth was a "mistake that has belatedly been rectified." There "will be some of you out there who disagree, those who persist with the view women’s football does not matter," that ManU "will be wasting money that could be spent on the men’s team." You are "holding on to your prejudices like a Neanderthal clutching a burning stick in a cave, but you are losing the argument." In fact, "you have already lost it." Women’s football will be one of the "fastest growing global sports over the next 10 years." Of course, the women’s game will "never attract the same interest as the men’s." Neither does it "seek to, certainly not in this lifetime." But it "wants to be taken seriously and its profile is steadily growing," particularly at the int'l level (TELEGRAPH, 3/22).
