[Commlist] CfP Women in Football

                            ***
*Call for Papers : Women in Football: Participation, Representation, and 
Futures.*
*One-Day Symposium*:  Tuesday, December 16th  2025.
*Organisers*: /Shamrock Rovers /in the Community//Project// Team, Dr. 
Glenn Doyle, Alan Fitzpatrick and Anna Maria Mullally, Technological 
University of Dublin, Tallaght Campus, Ireland in partnership with 
/Shamrock Rovers/ Football Club.
In association with Technological University of Dublin School of Media 
and /Shamrock Rovers/ Football Club, the /Shamrock Rovers in the 
Community/ Research Team invite proposals for a one-day, in-person, 
interdisciplinary symposium to be held on the TU Dublin, Tallaght 
campus. The conference theme is: *Women in Football: Representation, 
Participation, and Futures*.
Following the enormous success of this summer’s UEFA Women’s European 
Championships, and in anticipation of the tenth staging of the women’s 
FIFA World Cup in Brazil in 2027, the first time it well be held in 
South America, from grassroots to international level, women’s football 
is attracting more commercial, media and public attention than ever.
Whilst television broadcasting of the current European championships is 
solidly in place now, legacy broadcasters’ bids for rights to screen 
women’s competitions are still vastly below the figures they are 
offering to screen the men’s equivalents.  More positively, streaming 
platforms are widening viewer access, with Netflix and Deutsche Telekom 
sealing deals with FIFA to broadcast the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cup 
competitions in the US and Europe, respectively. Having garnered new 
audiences with its boxing live-streams, including the two Taylor v. 
Serrano bouts,  Netflix is already scheduling sports documentary and 
entertainment programming for the lead-up period to the 2027 Women’s 
World Cup, confirming its commitment to (the business potential of) 
women’s sport.
Current world champions Spain laid down not only a sporting excellence 
marker in 2023, but, also, challenged and exposed the rampant misogyny 
in Spanish women’s football. The Netflix documentary, /It’s All Over: 
The Kiss that Changed Spanish Football/ (Joanna Pardos, Spain, 2024) 
charts the sexism and inequitable treatment of the Spanish women’s 
national team, exposed following the notorious ‘kiss’  and the ensuing 
‘Rubiales Case.’  The negative experiences of the Spanish national team 
have been echoed in women’s football teams at multiple levels across 
national contexts. As a recent Guardian article reports though, the 
incident and its aftermath have also had positive outcomes for the team, 
who now receive equal payment and the same facilities and logistical 
support as their male counterparts 
(https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jul/03/spain-women-football-euro-2025-fight-battles-on-and-off-pitch 
<https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jul/03/spain-women-football-euro-2025-fight-battles-on-and-off-pitch> 
).
More generally, football infrastructures for women are improving and 
expanding, as the growth in academies and professionalisation of the 
women’s  game confirms and which, at a micro-level, can be seen in the 
reemergence in 2023, following a 10-year hiatus, of local club /Shamrock 
Rovers/, now competing in the League of Ireland Women’s Premier 
Division.  We are in a transformative period, as women’s football 
establishes itself institutionally and in the public imagination, what 
challenges remain for clubs like /Shamrock Rovers F.C/. and what 
expectations are there for the future?
This one-day symposium seeks to explore these issues and to widen 
existing disciplinary perspectives on, and approaches to, women’s 
football, informing analyses and making connections between industry 
practices and academic research.
Speakers do not have to be currently working in Higher Education. We 
welcome proposals for 15-minute papers, or multimedia presentations, as 
well as for posters, from independent scholars, teachers, policy makers, 
representatives of sporting bodies, club officials, journalists, retired 
academics, sporting officials, etcetera. We also welcome panel proposals 
and would ask that one person submit all proposals on behalf any group 
of 2 or max. 3 people.
*Topics of Interest*
We invite submissions on a wide range of associated topics, including, 
but not limited to:
•     -  Historical and Contemporary Media (mis-) representations of 
women in football both on and off the pitch.
•      -  Historical development of women’s football.
•      - Female football spectatorship, fandom and consumption, 
match-day attendance trends and criteria.
•      - /Shamrock Rovers/ and Women’s Football.
•     - On field female participation and retention across all levels of 
football, including player care and welfare.
•     - Player performance and workload. The /FIFPRO Women’s World Cup 
Workload Journey Report /(2024): ‘lopsided growth’, player overload and 
underload.
•     - Scientific and medical aspects of women’s footballing performance.
•     - Women’s football and national contexts: religious and political 
ideological frameworks.
•     - Celebrity and Female Soccer players.
•     - Women in the middle – Female referees.
•      - Non-playing participation of women in football.
•     - The role and activities of regulatory bodies, governance and 
women’s football politics.
•     - League Growth and Expansion.
•      - Branding and Sponsorship.
•     - Discrimination and Player Activism.
•     - Press representations of controversies, as well as screen media 
explorations, such as,  for example, Joanna Pardos’s (2024) Netflix 
documentary, /It’s All Over: The Kiss that Changed Spanish Football/, or 
Marie Crowe and Mark Tighe’s /RTÉ Investigates: Girls in Green / (2024) i.a.
*Submission Details*
Please send  proposals (max. 250 words), including the name of the 
speaker, a brief speaker biography (max. 80 words), the title of the 
paper or poster, and full contact details, to Dr Glenn Doyle 
((glenn.doyle /at/ tudublin.ie)), Anna Maria Mullally 
((anna-maria.mullally /at/ tudublin.ie)) and Alan Fitzpatrick 
((alan.fitzpatrick /at/ tudublin.ie)) by *5pm on September 19th, 2025*. 
Notification of acceptance of proposals will be issued by *October 3rd, 
2025*.
Further details about *conference registration, including fees and 
accommodation* *links*, will follow in late September.

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