ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the ways in which gender relations are played out in football and at some of the connections – and disconnections – between gender studies and sports studies. Gender intersects with other forces of di erentiation and especially inequalities, such as those based upon class, race, ethnicity and disability, in sport. Football has its own distinctive capacities but gender relations remain a powerful force across the eld of sport. In light of changing times and its popularity at all levels among a range of people, including women internationally, it might be claimed that football now occupies an equal playing eld. The sport, which has a long history of class-based a liations and a tradition of particularly male, working-class community support, is popular among young people of both sexes at grass-roots levels of participation as well of course as crossing generations in its huge support fan base, in many, if not all, parts of the world in the twenty- rst century.
