“During the five years from 1992 to 1997, the money paid into women’s sport by sponsors more than doubled, from 285 million to 600 million dollars. This represents progress, but the figures are still revealing in terms of what remains to be done. The total figure has now gone beyond one billion dollars, but sponsors pay 25 billion dollars a year into men’s sport. Yet without serious sponsors or adequate funding, women’s sport is not viable, as certain examples clearly show.”

“In the world of football, the Plessis-Robinson football club’s women’s teams hoped, in May 1998, to move up to the French national championship, but the club itself was against this, on the grounds that it would be too expensive. In practice, all the club’s cash subsidies went to the men’s team, although this played two divisions below. In the end, the women’s teams were dissolved by a decision of the board. When the United States hosted the fourth Women’s World Cup, in 2003, its professional women’s football league, which had won the World Cup itself in 1999, had to announce that it was dissolving, for lack of sponsors and reliable partners. In April 2004, Fulham, an English club, announced that it would cease funding its women’s team unless a sponsor could be found by June that year. The team thus ran the risk of a return to amateur status, after three years in the professional league and one year of semi-professional status.”