Women, Football and Mediated Spanishness Narratives.

A Comparative of the Men’s 2021 and Women’s 2022 Euro Coverage

Abstract

The Spanish women’s national football team won, for the first time ever, the World Cup in 2023. The subsequent extra-sporting events moved the national media debates: from some initial messages of patriotic glory to the reports and feminist claims of the women footballers, which prompted the disorientation of some male sports journalists. In this context, the present research focuses on the previous period to the ‘Rubiales affair’. Through the comparative between the two Spanish senior national football teams (men and women), it studies the media attention received by the teams and their members as well as analyzes the media construction of narratives of Spanishness in terms of gender. Two specific objectives are set: 1) to compare the coverage of both senior national teams in their respective participations in international competitions; and 2) to describe and analyze how the information corresponding to each team was presented. It combines content and discourse analysis on the front-pages of the four main Spanish sports newspapers during the senior men's (2021) and women's (2022) Euro. The conclusions point out a prevailing hegemonic masculine narrative sports press despite the growing tendency that women’s football has been experiencing in Spain for the last decade.