“You are the best… but can you twerk?” How Twitter users challenge the messaging around female professional footballers in the 2019 UEFA Women's Champions League final in a postfeminist context

Abstract

This paper analyses how fans engage on Twitter with the 22 players in the starting line up during the week of the 2019 UEFA Women’s Champions League final. It explores fans’ entangled representations of female professional footballers on Twitter from a postfeminist sensibility. Out of 200 tweets posted by the players during the day of the final and the week after, the research focuses on the 1468 fans replies to the 20 most engaged players’ tweets. To facilitate this, we developed an analysis instrument called the 3Fs Spiral, which helps to disentangle the complex meanings of the fans’ replies on Twitter. Results highlight the fans’ entangled representations and the continuous flow of disruption and reinforcement of the gender order that emerge from them in a set of tweets. The decentralised nature of Twitter has the potential to slowly promote the change of dominant gender narratives and frames in female football.