QUESTION:
Football fever (or soccer as it is occasionally known) is about to descend upon us with the World Cup to be co-hosted by Japan and South Korea soon to begin.

What do the Football Associations of, England, Holland and Germany have in common with China's Qing Dynasty?

A. They were among the first to recognize the status of women's football;
B. All four signed sponsorship deals with addidas;
C. All four banned women's football at some stage;
D. All four understood how much money could be made from football.

ANSWERS:
C is correct! Surprising though it may seem in the light of the boom in women's soccer during the last decade - and with the fourth Women's World Cup finals set for 2003 - the game was held back in earlier times through the prejudice of male-dominated organizations.

The first known records of the game in China are frescoes of women playing football at the time of the Donghan Dynasty (AD 25-220). How far women's football had progressed before the Qing Dynasty (AD 1644) came to power is not known, but it quite obviously never became the Sport of Qings.

Following the draconian ban it was not until the 1920's that football began creeping into China's school curriculum for girls. Fittingly in the context of the game's history, the first Women's World Cup was destined to be held in China in 1991 - and won by America, whose national team had played its first competitive match only six years earlier.