‘French football needs more women like Adriana’? Examining the media coverage of France’s women’s national football team for the 2011 World Cup and the 2012 Olympic Games

Traditional representations of sportswomen in the media and the influence of nationalism

Media representations of sportswomen have been the centre of attention of many studies, gender being a dominant framing device in the media (see, for example, Wensing and Bruce, 2003). It is argued that there are several identifiable rules or discursive strategies which are followed by sport journalists and which frame sportswomen as feminine subjects (Donnelly et al., 2008; Wensing and Bruce, 2003). For instance, Wensing and Bruce (2003) have identified five traditional framing techniques: gender marking, compulsory heterosexuality, emphasizing appropriate femininity, infantilization of women, and focus on non-sport-related aspects. Gender marking consists of identifying women’s events or sports, without indicating the equivalent male event with a gender (e.g. talking about women’s football when referring to the sport played by women but when simply talking about football assuming that it is men’s football). Relying on the works of Duncan et al. (1990) as well as Higgs and Weiller (1994), Wensing and Bruce state that ‘[i]n gender marking [emphasis added] an event is identified as a women’s event, and the equivalent men’s event as the/an event, implying that viewers are getting inferior women’s sport, not ‘real’ (men’s) sport’ (2003: 387). Compulsory heterosexuality is a discursive strategy that describes athletes as heterosexual subjects (e.g. representing women in a heterosexual role such as a wife or a mother). Emphasizing appropriate femininity is another discursive strategy used to represent sportswomen as gendered individuals. It consists of mentioning physical or psychological traits traditionally associated with femininity (e.g. framing the women as weak, beautiful, emotionally unstable and dependant). Infantilization of women is best represented, according to MacKay and Dallaire (2009), when female athletes are referred to as ‘girls’ or ‘young ladies’ or using their first name while men of the same age group are referred to by their last name and without terms indicating their youth. Wensing and Bruce have identified focusing on non-sport related aspects as a specific discursive strategy in which sports media focus on personal details about the life of female athletes rather than focusing on their athletic achievement. In addition to the five traditional techniques for framing women in sport media, several authors, notably Duncan and Hasbrook (1988), have mentioned and used another discursive technique in their analysis which is called ambivalence. Duncan and Hasbrook explained the concept by suggesting that there can be ‘some very positive, perhaps flattering portrayals of women athletes and teams joined with subtly negative suggestions that succeed in trivializing or belittling the women’s efforts’ (p. 8).

An Australian study of the 2000 Olympic Games demonstrated a view of sportswomen which challenged the old rules of framing gender in sport media (Wensing and Bruce, 2003). According to the authors, the traditional rules were rarely supported and applied to Cathy Freeman, an Australian track and field star, during the Games. The framing of Freeman in Australian newspapers suggested that there were other determining factors in the type of coverage athletes receive. The role Cathy Freeman played in taking on the hopes and pressures of the entire country was an indicating factor that a symbol of national unity can act as a primary framing device. National identity can therefore trump traditional framing, setting some women apart from others (Wensing and Bruce, 2003).

Women’s football (soccer) in the media

There was a major boom in media interest surrounding women’s football for the World Cup in 1999 when the tournament was held in the United States of America and the host nation won gold. This event was followed extensively by the (American) media, large crowds in the stadiums and scholars as well (Christopherson et al., 2002; Shugart, 2003). Examining the coverage of the US National Team through data from major local newspapers in the cities where the team played, Christopherson et al. concluded their analysis by stating that: ‘the US Women’s World Cup team gained popularity through heterosexuality, femininity, a hint of masculinity, and adherence to the notion that America is a land of equality – at least more equality than other nations have’ (2002: 182). In another study on the media coverage of the US team for the 1999 World Cup (Shugart, 2003), the data collection was designed to include major newspapers, news magazines, entertainment magazines as well as a sports magazine. The findings for this study highlighted the way gender was central to the media representations of the team and suggested the recurring use of very effective ‘sexualizing strategies’ (Shugart, 2003: 1) to describe the players and their performances. In a comparative study of men’s and women’s World Cup websites, Meân found important differences based on gender. She notably concluded that ‘the continued re/production of women’s soccer as primarily about femaleness undermine[d] women’s identities as athletes’ (2010: 83). In the 12 years that followed the 1999 World Cup which incited scholars to investigate the media coverage of women’s soccer, at least in the United States of America, few football nations and media around the world have paid any attention to their respective women’s national teams, often despite important international achievements. One notable and recent exception would be ‘Nadeshiko Japan’, the Japanese national team whose players instantly became celebrities in Japan after their World Cup win in 2011 (Ho, 2014). While only focused on the examination of Team Japan’s representations in Sukkiri!!, a morning talk show whose primary audience is women, Ho’s study highlighted the relation between nationalism, athleticism and femininity. The author concluded: ‘Ultimately, I contend that while Sukkiri!!’s ambivalent representations of Nadeshiko Japan are far from progressive, they move past representations of sportswomen as dutiful daughters or national heroines (…) by offering the potential for transgression’ (p. 179).

Setting the context

The 2011 women’s World Cup will be remembered according to football experts (e.g. Bernier, 2011; Reed, 2011) as the best ever with many exciting elimination games, including the final, and the highest level of play ever witnessed. In addition, the competition was covered by media from all around the world, thanks notably to the successes of the top three nations (i.e. Japan, USA and Sweden). This, considered as the one when ‘women’s football went mainstream’ (Dobson, 2011) is thus an ideal starting point in examining how women’s football/soccer is represented in the media.

Particular interest was taken in Team France for this study. France offers one of the richest men’s football cultures in all of Europe and as a culture has always kept male sports in a position of social power. ‘Les Bleus’, the men’s national team, is usually a source of great national pride, with the exception of the 2010 World Cup when the team suffered an early exit after a highly publicized incident in practice (i.e., the players refused to take part in a training session and remained inside the team’s bus). Women’s football in Europe, on the other hand, has traditionally been a victim of social stigma, the athletes often being viewed as lesbians with teams trying to dissociate from this ‘bad’ image (see Caudwell, 1999; Harris, 2005; Hekma, 1998; Mennesson and Clement, 2003). Comparisons between men’s and women’s performance has also commanded a male position of power. The men’s national team has a long history of competitive, successful teams, while the women’s team has been a work in progress, with little to show in terms of achievements. Before the 2011 World Cup, the team was however considered as a rising nation, eventually finishing fourth at the 2011 World Cup and the 2012 Olympic Games, its best international results in international competitions so far (for information, the team was fourth in the FIFA rankings in early 2014).

The focus on the portrayal of Team France during the 2011 Women’s World Cup and the 2012 Olympic Games will allow us to investigate whether sexual hierarchies and inequalities of power among genders are constructed in a context such as a women’s international sporting event and a mega sporting event (Plymire, 2005). This particular context offers a unique opportunity to look into the media coverage of a sport that is considered as ‘masculine’ in a country famous for its strong football culture on the men’s side.

Methodology

The data for this study came from all available electronic articles from two websites: the websites for the French Football Federation or Fédération Française de Football (fff.fr) and for L’Équipe (lequipe.fr) published before, during and after the World Cup (i.e. 82 and 35 articles respectively published between June 6th and July 20th 2011) as well as before, during and after the Olympic Games (i.e. 98 and 26 articles respectively published between April 24th and August 10th 2012). The website for the Fédération Française de Football (FFF) is the official website for the national football organization in France and reports on all news concerning French football from the amateur level to the national teams. L’Équipe is the largest national sports news company in France. It publishes a daily newspaper that is one of the most read newspapers in France (alongside newspapers focusing on general news and including sports news). L’Équipe also operates a website and television channel offering sports news on a 24-hour basis. Additional data were collected in the form of photographs and videos from both websites, including two series of videos produced by one of the main sponsors of the team before each competition. The first series of videos entitled ‘The Young Ladies of Clairefontaine’ or ‘Les Demoiselles de Clairefontaine’ (Clairefontaine being the name of the training facility where French national football teams gather in preparation for big competitions, in this case the 2011 Women’s World Cup) consisted of nine videos designed to introduce the team to the fans and create excitement about the players and the upcoming competition. ‘Challenges at Clairefontaine’ (‘Défis à Clairefontaine’) were another series of videos consisting of 13 episodes and involving players from the men’s and women’s national teams which were both getting ready for important competitions in the summer of 2012 (i.e. the European Championship and the Olympic Games respectively). Finally, a promotional campaign designed by the FFF in 2010 (i.e. before the World Cup) entitled ‘Football au féminin’ which translates to ‘Football, the feminine way’ was created by the FFF in order to increase girls’ and women’s participation in football in France.

We adopted a feminist approach in order to look at ‘the relationship between media representations and the perpetuation of patriarchal and sexist gender norms’ (Plymire, 2005: 145) and performed a Foucauldian discourse analysis on the data collected about the women’s national French team (Liao and Markula, 2009). As Liao and Markula stated, ‘discourses are ways of knowing and everyone using language participates in the circulation and creation of these knowledges’ (2009: 40). Applied to our study and context, media coverage of sport will be considered as a milieu where discourses about women’s sport and female athletes are circulated, (re)produced and sometimes resisted and where power relations (between men’s and women’s football for example) can be identified (Liao and Markula, 2009). In order to help us with the analysis, we borrowed from Wensing and Bruce the discursive techniques suggested to be representative of media constructions of sportswomen when gender is the primary device (2003). One of the objectives of the analysis is thus to investigate if and how the women’s national team was represented by any of the following strategies: gender marking, compulsory heterosexuality, emphasis on appropriate femininity, infantilization, focus on non-sport-related aspects and ambivalence.

Sexism in news articles for the World Cup

The analysis of news articles from the FFF and L’Équipe websites for the 2011 World Cup revealed several patterns in the use of discursive techniques in the portrayal of Team France. Our findings demonstrate an important use of gender marking when reporting news and results about the women’s national team. A search on both websites with keywords restricted solely to ‘football’ returned all results related to men’s football. Upon further analysis, the FFF, being strictly football-related, had navigation tabs reserved for different levels (e.g. under-16 and national teams). The tab labelled ‘Team France’ was reserved for the men’s national team while gender marking was employed to label all tabs representing women’s football, such as ‘Féminine A’ for example, which translates to ‘Women’s A’. Furthermore, despite the recent rise in popularity and success of the women’s team, there was no tab representing it on the front page. Similarly, the navigation tabs on L’Équipe website represented all sports reported on. The football tab, simply marked ‘football’, did not represent women on their front page, nor was there a secondary tab for women’s football. In order to navigate to the women’s football page, navigation to a drop down tab entitled ‘Other’ was required to find the gender marked ‘women’s football’ page. In addition, nearly all of the articles on the two websites related to the World Cup were categorized under ‘FIFA Women’s World Cup Germany 2011’ and were marked as such above each article. Exceptions to this gender marking were reserved to two FFF articles, one having Olympic implications, the other being a fan-related competition for a jersey which did not include any news reporting on the team. Some articles on L’Équipe website had been archived and were categorized under ‘Other Championships’, which made them impossible to be included in the analysis. In addition to headlines being marked for gender, a vast majority of the articles on the FFF and L’Équipe included gender-marked content within the news reports. Gender was specified on a number of occasions with the uses of ‘France’s women’s team’ as well as the mention of ‘Women’s World Cup’ within the article. Finally, results indicated heavy use of the term ‘women’s football’ rather than simply ‘football’ in the FFF and L’Équipe articles, as was the case for men’s football.

Our findings confirmed that the media utilized gender marking to indicate a difference between ‘football’ (i.e. ‘men’s football’), considered as the ‘normal’ or ‘real’ version (Wensing and Bruce, 2003), and the gender-identified version (i.e. ‘women’s football’). Not only was the event and sport gender marked everywhere, the placement of navigation tabs and information regarding women’s football was hidden. Its placement was a clear sign of marginalization and subordination as it was placed in ranking order below all of the men’s events, including the youngsters and other football related sports such as futsal and beach football. The findings echo Meân’s conclusion with regards to her study on the media coverage of the women’s World Cup as compared to the one of the men’s competition in the sense that our results also reveal ‘an underlying organizational framing of women’s soccer as lacking in skill, action, and interest’ (2010: 82). Finally, our results confirm the inferiority of women’s football in terms of media coverage in comparison to the men’s version which is the most reported sport in many European countries and arguably the only global media sport (Horky and Nieland, 2013).

The second most prevalent discursive technique employed by the news articles on the FFF and L’Équipe websites was the infantilization of women. Throughout player interviews as well as interviews with Coach Bruno Bini, first names were quite frequently employed. The majority of first name mentions stem from interviews with Bini while being interviewed regarding certain games or plays. He refers to a few players by first name such as ‘Sandrine’ and ‘Gaëtane’ in separate interviews concerning their play in a previous game. In addition, reporters have also participated in first name basis referrals. While use of first names may be mostly utilized by Bini or fellow players, it remains that when male athletes were mentioned in this same set of data, last names were either used or identified, while women’s were not. L’Équipe showed the same patterns, albeit to a lesser extent. There were much fewer mentions of first names; however when there were, they were predominantly used by Coach Bini during interviews. More important than the use of first names is the condescending words used to infantilize the players. Both the FFF and L’Équipe articles demonstrated an infantilizing tone through the use of terms such as ‘girls’, ‘young girls’ or simply just ‘young’. Use of this discursive technique was noted in the words of journalists, Coach Bini and the team’s players. It would appear that the players were often referred to as ‘the girls’, regardless of who was addressing them. Results indicated that the prevalence of first name use as well as use of such terms as ‘girls’ diminished in frequency between the beginning of the World Cup tournament and the end.

Using condescending and infantilizing words to describe the women or their play or referring to them by their first names, a practice that is typically reserved to a more infantile population, was used in this context to once again subordinate women to men and it is a recurrent result in the literature (e.g. Crolley and Teso, 2007; Duncan et al., 1990). Wensing and Bruce reported the presence of the same technique in their study on Australian runner Cathy Freeman (2003) but suggested that the use of “girl” or ‘daughter’ was a way of connecting the athlete to the Australian people. The media thus created a context in which Australians felt comfortable enough with her aboriginality to claim her as their representative. This however did not appear to be the reason in our study as the FFF and L’Équipe often paired ‘girls’ with coach Bini, suggesting a possessive relationship between the coach and his athletes. Bini was indeed often portrayed as an emotional crutch for the women, therefore subordinating the players and minimizing their role in the team’s success. On the other hand, when the term “girls” was employed by the players themselves and the coach, along with first names to refer to the women, it was more difficult to be sure that it was a way to infantilize them. On the contrary, it could simply indicate a high degree of familiarity between players or players and coach or a commonly used term in soccer (and in sport in general), despite its potential underlying sexism.

Related to the use of the term ‘girls’, it is important to note that it was often used in reference to ‘Bini’s girls’. The possessive implication of the players belonging to the coach or the idea that the players were subservient to their coach demonstrated a blatant establishment of heterosexuality by playing into a patriarchal hierarchy. Besides numerous references to ‘Bini’s girls’, the analysis showed that a great amount of the players’ successes were attributed to the male coach Bini and his work. Furthermore, the FFF articles showed that a lot of attention was paid to the coach and his relationships with staff members and players, as well as his own personal life and non-sports-related aspects. For example, interviews with training staff as well as video staff included questions on their past with Bini, rather than the entire team. Another interesting instance concerned an interview with Bini presenting the contents of his suitcase during tournaments which can also be interpreted as a case of the media focusing on non-sport related aspects. There were also many photographs that placed Bini at the centre of the picture. One in particular showed the team practising, but the shot was blurred on the players in order to accentuate Bini and his presence. Another photograph placed Bini in the foreground of a press conference, diverting attention from players lining the table in the background. L’Équipe articles were quite similar, with a lot of journalists presenting the players as ‘Bini’s girls’ or ‘Bini’s team’.

Although we generally see compulsory heterosexuality as a construct that places heterosexuality as the only form of sexuality (Wright and Clarke, 1999), heterosexuality can also be seen as an ‘institution and a practice that manifests and maintains male power’ (Rich, 1981). The established relationship between Bruno Bini and the players through the use of possessive statements such as ‘his girls’ created a patriarchal hierarchy between the coach and the players. This phenomenon has been seen in Communist media studies on female Korean boxers, but with the head of state as patriarch and political motives at its core (Jung, 2009). This type of compulsory heterosexuality’s presence in our study could be a sport culture relationship between coach and players that is found throughout male and female sports (and especially football), or could have to do with the relative anonymity of the players versus the established fame of the coach at this particular event. However, the focus on non-related aspects during an interview with the coach could be interpreted as an attempt by the media to decrease the credibility usually devoted to his counterparts on the men’s side by avoiding sport related questions that showcase their expertise as head coaches, with inquiries about tactics or players’ selection for example. As a result, it can be argued that Bini’s players were also discredited in the process that Duncan and Hasbrook (1988) called a ‘denial of game’ (p. 10).

‘The Young Ladies of Clairefontaine’

Several discursive techniques were identified throughout the series of videos ‘The Young Ladies of Clairefontaine’ produced before the 2011 World Cup. ‘The Young Ladies of Clairefontaine’ videos were filmed indoors at the training centre with players sitting on couches. They were in team wear, some in uniform and some in team tracksuits and were answering questions. The title ‘Demoiselles’ which could be translated to ‘young ladies’ or ‘misses’ infantilized the players even prior to the beginning of the videos. Moreover, the logo for the series included the caption ‘Team France Women’s Football’ and constituted another instance of gender marking. Although gender marking and infantilizing were noted in these videos, they were not the major discursive techniques utilized in the videos. Most of all we found a focus on non-sport related aspects with football at the centre of only two videos (‘Life as a team’ and ‘During the game’). In the series of videos, the interview questions were mostly unrelated to football, and even to sports. Titles for these videos included: ‘Footballers and fashionista’, ‘Footballers and girls first and foremost’, ‘Leisure outside football’ and ‘After football’. Players were notably asked: ‘Who do you share a room with? Best memory of the group? What are you going to do after football?’ These questions were asked in order to allow fans to get to know the players but were completely irrelevant to the sport itself. It was getting to know the athlete as a person rather than as a footballer. The questions also intersected with additional discursive techniques. For example, they attempted to establish heterosexuality with questions like: ‘Where did you meet your boyfriend? What’s your favourite tool of seduction?’ These questions placed the players in the role of girlfriends and seductresses (of men), which in turn, emphasized appropriate femininity. Other questions served to reinforce the concept of appropriate femininity: ‘Do you do your hair before the game? Cleats or Heels? Do you wear make-up for the games? One thing you need to have in your purse at all times?’ These questions placed the athletes as ‘fashionable’ and ‘lady-like’ and were judgemental of other women. Out of the nine videos analysed, only two focused on sport-related questions. These questions were limited to: ‘Favourite technique on the football field? On field dream? Most technically skilled player?’ Further emphasis on appropriate femininity was found in the logo of ‘The Young Ladies of Clairefontaine’ which presented a woman in football socks and wearing high heels.

Feminist ideology suggested that the media frame women by emphasizing appropriate femininity and with a focus on non-sport related aspects (Wensing and Bruce, 2003). The type of questions asked in ‘The Young Ladies of Clairefontaine’ videos touched on nearly every aspect of the discursive techniques. Feminist scholars argued that patriarchal power in the sport was the control of female athletes through the control of their bodies and sexuality while they hid heterosexism and homophobia behind the conventions and stereotyped descriptions of women’s private lives (Pirinen, 1997). While nearly all the questions that the players were asked were focused on non-sport related aspects which constituted another instance of a ‘denial of game’ (Duncan and Hasbrook, 1988: 10), we could clearly illustrate the intended heterosexist and traditionally feminine representations through questions such as ‘Do you do your make-up before the games?’ and ‘Where did you meet your boyfriend?’ By objectifying and sexualizing women in such a manner, the producers have effectively belittled the women as athletes and diminished the importance of their sport performance. They also used heterosexuality and femininity to promote the team and its players in a similar way as the American media represented the US Team for the 1999 World Cup (Christopherson et al., 2002). We can infer that this technique was particularly chosen in an attempt to distance the players from the image of ‘masculine’ femininity or suspicions of lesbianism found in women’s football in various European countries (Caudwell, 1999; Hekma, 1998; Mennesson and Clement, 2003). However, it is worth noting that, in the series of videos, some players resisted the producers’ intention by either not participating in typically ‘feminine’ activities (e.g. wearing make-up and high heels) and explicitly acknowledging it or simply by not answering the question related to the players’ supposed boyfriends which was only answered by two players (while six to nine players regularly responded to the other questions).

‘French football needs more women like Adriana’

The promotional campaign called ‘Football, the feminine way’ was launched after France’s qualification for the 2011 World Cup. With its recurring slogan ‘French football needs more women like Adriana’ (‘Le football français a besoin de plus de femmes comme Adriana’) the campaign hit on all categories of the discursive techniques proposed by Wensing and Bruce (2003). The campaign featured a series of five photographs of model Adriana Karembeu, often simply called ‘Adriana’, posing in team attire with slogans and information to entice and direct potential recruits to get involved in football as coaches, players, managers or referees. Adriana is a Slovak born model and actress married, when the campaign was unveiled, to French (male) footballer Christian Karembeu who was selected as an ambassador for women’s football in France. Interestingly enough, she is neither a footballer nor a native of France. The presence of a professional model in this campaign for participation was in itself a shining example of emphasizing appropriate femininity and the establishment of heterosexuality. In each picture, she was dressed in attire reflecting the position she was promoting (i.e. coach, player, manager or referee). The image of Adriana as a player depicted her in the dressing room with her hair down and reaching down to arrange her sock. She was sitting wearing the captain’s band, with her long legs demonstrating a fair amount of skin. She was in full make-up and the slogan above her read ‘For once, you won’t scream at the sight of another girl with the same outfit’. Not only did her pose and appearance suggest an emphasis on appropriate femininity, but the slogan also suggested the same through the implication of fashion concerns in women while it infantilized women by calling them ‘girls’ and using Adriana’s first name only. In the next scene, Adriana, dressed as a referee, adopted a seductive stance with her hair down and wearing full make-up. The slogan read ‘French football needs more women like Adriana’ with the words ‘sportive, observant and diplomatic’ written in brackets and a smaller font. While the words suggested empowerment, the slogan title tended to emphasize appropriate femininity, creating a very ambivalent combination. The slogan ‘French football needs more women like Adriana’ was used in the coach’s and manager’s displays. Finally, the homepage represented Adriana in full uniform with a medal around her neck and carrying a trophy. Once again, her hair was down, she was wearing make-up and her shorts appeared much shorter than the norm. She was surrounded by ‘teammates’ who appeared with their hair up and medals. The slogan read ‘If everyone is looking at you, it’s not because your make-up is running’. The photographs and slogans suggested they were seeking women who represented an appropriate version of femininity.

The focus in the visual representations and slogans on beauty, seductiveness, appropriate feminine behaviours as well as a physical appearance in accordance with subjective norms constituted the most blatant example of objectification and sexualization of women that we found in this study. The choice of a model like Adriana Karembeu as the ambassador for an entire sport and an entire country was a deliberate effort by the FFF to emphasize appropriate femininity, and more importantly the appropriate feminine body, while discrediting current or former team members, their successes, and even the importance and pride associated with their (French) nationality. Christopherson et al. found similar results in their study of the 1999 World Cup (2002) where the emphasis on femininity was rewarded, granting the players access to social status and simultaneously devaluing them. The presence of Adriana Karembeu at the centre of this campaign could suggest that the women who were already part of the team did not conform to ‘appropriate’ feminine standards. The slogan ‘French football needs more women like Adriana’ trivialized the team’s accomplishments while alienating women interested in the sport but who did not meet these standards of beauty. A hierarchy of beauty was created, emphasizing the need for ‘feminine’ looking women over ‘masculine’ looking women (Pirinen, 1997). The promotional campaign (and the use of various discursive techniques) appears to mostly work to counter the ‘negative’ image present in women’s soccer (e.g. Mennesson and Clement, 2003) and we can therefore wonder whether this strategy was successful at attracting more women to the game as players, managers or referees. We notably think of Kane et al.’s findings (2013) suggesting that focusing on images of competence was a particularly good strategy to promote women’s sport to young girls and women. We argue that the campaign might have actually been designed to direct various media’s attention and (heterosexual) men’s attention to women’s soccer based on the supposed idea that ‘sex sells’ women’s sport (Kane et al., 2013: 292).

A completely different coverage for the Olympic Games?

With regards to the Olympic Games, gender did not seem to be as prevalent in the media coverage of Team France, whether in L’Équipe or on the FFF website. However, gender marking was still present with mentions of the ‘women’s tournament’, and ‘women’s football’ while, when talking about France’s men’s national team and its competition, omitting to mention any reference to gender (for instance, referring to ‘Euro 2012’, the European Championship which was held on the men’s side earlier in the summer of 2012). Another discursive strategy used was the infantilization of women but it mostly seemed to be quotes from the head coach, staff members, football officials or even the players themselves. For example, the coach talked about ‘the girls trusting their preparation’ and one of the players mentioned that she still needed to improve her play in order to reach ‘the girls’ level’. Leading up to the Olympic Games and during the competition, the use of first names seemed to be less prevalent than it was for the World Cup and players were often referred to by their last name only, in a similar way as the men. What really appeared to prevail was a focus on sport-related aspects, ranging from reports on different training sessions to changes in the starting 11 players.

To further illustrate the point, a series of videos was developed by the FFF’s main sponsor prior to important competitions on both the men’s and women’s sides with France’s men’s team competing at the European Championship and the women’s team at the Olympic Games in the summer of 2012. The videos entitled ‘Challenges at Clairefontaine’ featured players from both teams who were paired to compete in a succession of challenges, all related to football or sport in general. For instance, the duos had to battle in slaloms, juggling, kicks on goal, scrimmage, table football and table tennis. Despite the colour chosen to indicate the women’s team (purple) which is perceived to be a typically ‘feminine’ colour and the obvious gender marking (‘France’s National Team’ vs ‘France’s Women’s National Team’ or ‘Équipe de France’ vs ‘Équipe de France Féminine’), the videos present the players of both genders in a way that highlights their technical skills as well as their competitive spirit and explicitly minimizes the importance of gender in the context of football. In that regard, the statement provided underneath the videos is telling: ‘Football is not a matter of gender; it is a matter of passion! With Crédit Agricole [bank which sponsors the FFF and the series of videos], discover Team France’s male and female players as you never saw them!’ (‘Le football, ce n’est pas une question de genre, c’est une question de passion ! Avec le Crédit Agricole, découvrez les joueurs et joueuses de l’Équipe de France comme vous ne les avez jamais vus!’). Apart from the videos which tended to suggest equality between Team France’s male and female players, it was interesting to note that no more articles were published after August 10th 2012, the day following the bronze medal game that France lost to Canada. The articles that were circulated on August 9th and 10th emphasized the disappointment of the loss and proposed a wrap-up for the tournament but quite abruptly stopped.

In preparation for the Olympic Games, Team France’s representations in the media completely changed from what they were prior to the 2011 World Cup by being more focused on sport. On top of this, the team also seemed to contribute to the national pride usually associated with men’s football. With the team identified as a medal contender before the beginning of the Olympic tournament, nationalism clearly influenced how the players were represented and the media seemed to present ‘real’ athletes or ‘just athletes’ as MacKay and Dallaire (2009: 32) would suggest. Team France’s players were indeed mostly portrayed as athletes trying to be the best at their sport and contribute to France’s overall success at the Olympic Games, in other words they were depicted as ‘legitimate and serious athletes’ (MacKay and Dallaire, 2009: 35). In this sense, they were first and foremost recognized for their physical and technical skills as well as their competitive spirit thus finally constituting a ‘confirmation of game’ (Duncan and Hasbrook, 1988: 11) for women’s soccer, a feat often reserved for men’s sport. This result can also be interpreted as a bending of the traditional rules of gender framing in the media (Wensing and Bruce, 2003) which mostly occurs when nationalism triumphs over sexism in the way female athletes are represented by the media (i.e. less or no focus on gender and more emphasis on sport). Finally, we can argue that the team and its players might have simply benefited from what Quin et al. called a ‘contextual effect’ (2010: 112), mainly a combination of the ‘Olympic Games effect’ (p. 106), a ‘medals effect’ and a ‘national effect’ (p. 113), with journalists mostly focusing on ‘their’ athletes, especially when they are successful. As a result of France’s loss in the bronze medal game, it seemed logical that the media abandoned the team to focus on other successful (French) athletes at the Games.

Conclusions

In a study on sports media producers in France, Gee (2009) explained that the coverage of women’s sport was often dependent on exceptional performances from the sportswomen, on the athletes’ physical (‘feminine’) appearance, and on the fact that certain sports were not seen as appropriate for women. She argued that ‘contact sports such as rugby, football and boxing were regarded by decision makers as essentially masculine and therefore aesthetically unpleasing when played by women’ (p. 53). In this context, it is easier to understand where the data from the World Cup come from and the shift that occurred when Team France’s performance became ‘exceptional’, thus decreasing the focus on the players’ gender. Because of a surprising finish in the top four nations at the World Cup, the team’s talent and achievements were finally recognized by the media as illustrated by the front page cover for the paper edition of L’Équipe after the team’s win in the quarter-finals; this was the first time that women’s football made the cover in the journal’s history.

The study’s unique contribution lies in the length of the data collection that allowed us to follow a team for two major football competitions and to witness a shift in the media coverage from very gendered to more football-centred, mostly thanks to exceptional and unexpected results. Because the Olympic Games are such an important competition in which national prides are highly displayed and reinforced by the media, being identified as a medal hopeful for the Olympic Games guarantees an athlete or team quality coverage, regardless of the gender of the athlete or team. In the Olympic context, when covering a female athlete or a women’s team, the media did so without emphasis on the gender/femininity of the competitor(s), as compared to other women’s sports events such as the women’s World Cup where the coverage was often gendered. However, some subtle forms of gender marking and appropriate femininity still remained in the Olympic coverage and exceptional results were necessary in order to exist in the media’s eyes.

On the men’s side, many media follow the team even outside major competitions and always provide in depth analysis of its performances, regardless of the team’s success. Future research is required in order to investigate how the popularity and so far ongoing successes of the team will affect the way the team and its players are represented by the media. In other words, we wonder what the quality of the media coverage for France’s women’s team outside of the Olympic Games will be. The 2015 women’s World Cup in Canada will be a great opportunity to answer these questions.