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This chapter introduces women's football in a global, professional era. Key in this is an acknowledgement of the male-dominated roots of the sport in many contexts, which has historically served to restrict women's participation. However, we identify the significant growth of women's involvement in football, which has resulted in professional opportunities for women playing and working in the sport. Football organisations are increasingly taking the development of the women's game more seriously and football can be considered a legitimate career opportunity for women. The chapter then identifies the scope of the book, which includes contributions on the lived experience of professionalisation, the processes of professionalisation and the role of commercialisation and media.

The term ‘obrigatoriedade’ is a colloquial shorthand in Brazil for the policy incentivising South American clubs to open a women's division by making it a prerequisite for entry in the ever more lucrative male Copa Libertadores. The focus of this chapter is a balance of how the South American football federation CONMEBOL's flagship policy has impacted upon the gradual professionalisation of women's football in Brazil. On one hand, the policy has already caused a domino effect as a critical mass of clubs seek to imitate the few clubs who have already provided year-round contracts and conditions that could credibly be described as professional. However, there is a strong feeling that the delivery of the policy has left much to be desired. There are no contractual stipulations requiring clubs to offer professional conditions and from an early stage the practice of outsourcing women's football to another entity or club has sent out a clear message that certain clubs have begun by only paid lip-service to the policy rather than truly embracing the women's game. This chapter considers the future possibilities for the professionalisation of women's football in Brazil. Moreover, the plight of long-standing amateur clubs, who have tirelessly championed the women's game prior to the arrival of the larger clubs, is considered.

Introduction – Since the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon (2009), sport has, for the first time, become a policy area of the European Union (EU).

Purpose – The aim of this chapter is to investigate the EU’s anti-discrimination policy for sports.

Methodology – Firstly, all the agreements, regulations, directives, and court decisions regarding nondiscrimination in sports will be reviewed. Secondly, discriminative examples in different sport branches will be investigated. In fact, this research will examine discrimination in both professional and amateur sports, including discrimination towards men, women, and LGBTIQ+ persons. Thirdly, the bodies, institutions, or persons who are accused of any kind of discrimination in sports will be researched, including fans, officials of clubs and federations, referees, players, and sports media. Finally, recommendations will be presented for the development of an improved sports policy that is capable of increasing diversity and equal participation in European sports.

Findings – For many underlying reasons, which the author will try to address in this chapter, there is a tendency to ignore discrimination in sports. Although the EU has passed legislation specifically designed to prohibit discrimination in sport, neither the legal arrangements nor their applications in Member States serve to end any kind of discrimination in the realm of sports. Thus, this chapter will attempt to raise awareness of this crucial and unending problem.

On 2 February 2020, 99.9 million viewers learnt about the Women's Football Alliance (WFA), the largest women's American football league in the United States, when former player Katie Sowers became the first woman to coach in the Super Bowl. In the same month, the WFA announced several corporate partnerships and a new television deal with statements that connected the support for women's American football to advancing gender equity.

This chapter examines the professionalisation of women's American football in the United States through the lens of mediated visibilities. We use the term mediated visibilities, rather than media coverage, to move beyond how journalists are writing about sport (or ‘covering’ sport) and account for the complex ways in which content about women's sport circulates across producers and platforms in the digital media environment. In particular, our analysis examines the opportunities and limitations of digital media in the process of (semi-)professionalisation of women's American football.

The WFA joined the broader ‘momentum’ of women's sport in the United States as both the league's social media platforms and the sponsors aligned their messages with cultural narratives around women's sport to invoke gender equity in promoting women's American football. Moreover, the league positioned the strategy to enhance mediated visibility the sport as an integral step in the process of (semi-)professionalisation. However, the role of the WFA's digital media platforms alone appears to be limited without substantial structural change.

Most professional athletes are broke financially within a short few years after they stop playing. It is easy for outsiders to place the blame squarely on the athlete himself. This rush to judgment, however, is not entirely accurate. Black student-athletes who have the talent and ability to play professional sports are hyper-focused on getting to the next level, and the system around them is built to accommodate that focus. A lack of educational, financial, and legal structures creates a dynamic that sets the athlete up for failure. This chapter will focus on the legal and financial realities that Black males face when transitioning into and out of professional sports. In order to shift the current paradigm, this chapter will also provide solutions for both the athlete and the coaches, friends, family members, and agents who surround the athlete, in order to empower the athlete to positively impact himself, his family, and his community.

This chapter examines the locker room practices of Brazil's first transexual (their term) men's amateur soccer team, the Meninos Bons de Bola (MBB), or Soccer Star Boys. Drawing on a photo shoot with the MBB inside the locker room, and on conversations with photographer Isabel Abreu as well as members of the team, this chapter explores the debates surrounding queer and trans body politics amidst the rise of the right in Brazil and the Americas. Taken in 2017 and released in 2018, the photo series capture a moment of political transition in Brazil; the images are taken after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and her socialist Workers’ Party and before the election of ultra-rightwing candidate Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro rose to power, in part, by positioning himself against so-called ‘gender ideology’ and attacking marginalized populations, including LGBTQIA+ people. Bolsonarismo and its followers are politically fascist; they believe changing gender norms are linked to Brazil's perceived decline; they claim these shifting norms are humiliating, and respond with nationalism and violence. In this climate, the MBB have shifted their approach to trans politics by becoming more discerning about the teams' visibility and representation. Analysing both the images and their context, this chapter suggests that the Meninos' experiences highlight the connections between political fascism and what queer sport theorist Brian Pronger refers to as Body Fascism. The MBB contest such forms of repression through strategic uses of nudity and through representational choices that insist on the player's humanity and beauty. By asserting that their bodies on the pitch and in the locker room is ‘art, activism and resistance’ (the team's tagline), the MBB fight for trans justice in and through futebol.