A few small victories in the growth of women's football:
Juventus will have a women's team next year.
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http://www.isportconnect.com/juventus-women-football-serie-a/They'll be only the
second Serie A men's club to have an affiliated Serie A women's club. Juve are going to be fast-tracked to the top division, although it's still unclear how the 2017/18 league will look. Ex-international player
Rita Guarino will become manager, and they'll go up against Fiorentina, the top Italian women's club. One of the Fiorentina board has
given his club credit for speeding Juventus along to create a women's side.
In England,
Port Vale's club trust are starting women's and girls teams:
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http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/port-vale-to-launch-women-s-and-girls-teams-after-earning-funding/story-30390369-detail/story.htmlThe funding follows some successful
female football community programs run by the trust previously.
On the downside,
Real Madrid aren't ready to set up a women's senior team. Despite some excited media reports that Real would
join the Liga Iberdrola, Spain's top division, the club is only planning to run female youth teams for the time being.
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http://en.as.com/en/2017/03/30/football/1490862971_831658.htmlReal's president reiterated
this week that they would only have girls' junior teams for training purposes. Presumably that would lead to a full senior team at some point. But the lack of promises seems like a cop-out – Real clearly want to compete with their rivals, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, who are dominating the women's league and have genuinely popular teams. But Real don't want to be compared with them too much?

So, what about the Man United problem? Not to give them too much attention.

At this point in England, having no women's team at all, nor any plans for one, is probably worse for your business than spending a bit of money on a women's team, even if they're just in the
regional league.
Rachel Brown-Finnis's
criticism of Man Utd this week has added to what
others elsewhere have pointed out. How long will they let the negative publicity build, as well as
letting talented footballers go to their near rivals?
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