England
In England, the top competition of women's football, the FA Women's Premier League, is semi-professional. The major women's clubs competing are affiliates of male club counterparts, usually bearing the same names with the acronyms LFC or WFC, but they do not share the same large stadiums, instead renting smaller stadiums from lower-level clubs (no women's club actually owns their stadium). The competition is semi-professional, meaning that the players are paid above the old maximum for professionals but rely on part-time jobs or schooling outside the game. Full professionalism has been tried, mostly on the part of individual teams (Fulham L.F.C. was the first side to go full pro, but was downgraded later by the owners), but it will take years to develop a fully professionalised women's league in England. Backing by a male club does not necessarily equal success, and the level of success achieved by male clubs may be reversed in female counterparts (compare these local derbies: Aston Villa vs. Birmingham City; Bristol City vs. Bristol Rovers; Liverpool vs. Everton; and Sunderland vs. Newcastle United)
Similar semi-professionalism examples exist in women's rugby union and cricket. Common to most European sports, promotion and relegation is used for the leagues (which the WNBA and WPS do not have). The LET (Ladies European Tour)is Europe’s leading women’s professional golf tour and formed as the WPGA in 1978. Over the last 33 years, the tour has developed into a truly international organisation and in 2011 will operate 28 golf tournaments in 19 different countries worldwide. www.ladieseuropeantour.com
Read more about this topic: Women's Professional Sports
Famous quotes containing the word england:
“The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“Old England liberty—to be robbed by the Ministry, and insulted by the populace without redress.”
—J.G. (John Gabriel)
“My heart is set.
All goodly sport
For my comfort
Who shall me let?”
—Henry VIII, King Of England (1491-1547)