Is sex appeal the way to sell womens football?
Rachel Brown is the England and Everton goalkeeper. She has abandoned her goalkeeping gloves and is knocking a ball around in pink kitten heels and a pink cutaway vest top, her blond ponytail gleaming. We can see her from behind and she is showing a good flank of bra. A slither of knicker peeps out from beneath her jeans. In another photograph, she has got her gloves back on, as an accessory to a black cocktail dress, and is waving them at the camera, perhaps to remind us what it is about her we are meant to be interested in. The photographs appear in the Look Book, a glossy brochure featuring four members of the England women’s football team. It has been produced by the Football Association to ignite interest in the women’s game generally, and the European Championship in particular, which will be held next year in England. Alongside the women in the Look Book appear the captions “feminine”, “glamorous”, “athletic” and “fun”. The girls, as they are called, “are as dazzling off the pit
