Women have played association football since the beginnings of the sport. In a number of countries, however, women's football has historically been subjected to severe restrictions, including outright bans during most of the 20th century. These bans have had a significant impact on the development of the sport.

Background Following the outbreak of World War I and the subsequent mass mobilisation of women into the workforce, interest in women's football rose rapidly and many teams and tournaments were founded. The interest in the sport continued to grow following the end of the war and into the 1920s. During this period, which has been referred to as a first golden age for women's football, matches were able to attract significant audiences. However, the end of the war also brought with it a backlash against the gains women had made, including legal changes to rollback women's employment, such the Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act 1919, and moral panics, such as over the flapper sub-culture.

By country Afghanistan

Following the 2021 Taliban offensive, in which the Taliban re-captured Afghanistan and reestablished the Islamic Emirate, all women's sports were banned in the country, including football. According to the Sport & Rights Alliance, "within days of the Taliban’s 2021 takeover, the new government singled out AWNT players for reprisals. As they scrambled to find an escape from their country, players were forced to burn all evidence of their football careers and go into hiding."

Australia

In the early 1900s, women's soccer saw significant growth in Australia, with a 1921 match at The Gabba in Brisbane saw attendance of 10,000 spectators. After the English Football Association banned women's soccer that year, however, the English ban was soon replicated across Australia. The ban would endure until the 1960s.Reid, Irene A. & Jane Dennehy. Seven Faces of Women’s Sport. Emerald Group Publishing, 2018. Page 63.

Belgium

The Royal Belgian Football Association instituted a ban on women's football in the 1920s, citing medical reasons. The ban would last until late-1970, when the Association announced that men's clubs would be allowed to establish women's sections. However, the Association put in place several restrictions on women's games, including limiting the game to two 35-minutes halves without extra time instead of two 45-minutes halves, making players take corner kicks from the edge of the penalty area instead of the corner area, and limiting the size of the ball to that used by U12 boys players.

Brazil

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, women's football in Brazil underwent a period of significant growth, led by figures such as the journalist Cléo de Galsan and manager Carlota Alves de Resende. By 1940, there was at least 15 women's clubs in Brazil and the sport was achieving mainstream popularity, including matches being held at the Pacaembu Stadium that attracted tens of thousands of spectators, an international tour against women's clubs through South America being planned, and preliminary discussions being held to create a professional women's league.Gonçalves Magalhães, Lívia. The Beautiful Game Reimagined: Women's Soccer in Brazil. Common Ground Research Networks, 2025.

However, in 1937, the conservative and authoritarian Estado Novo had been established by President Getúlio Vargas, and conservatives in the country began campaigning against the sport. These campaigners claimed that it posed a threat to the health of potential mothers and would cause a deterioration of social norms. Vargas subsequently ordered the Ministry of Health to investigate the concerns. In January 1941, de Resende was arrested by the Brazilian authorities and accused of financially and sexually exploiting the players in the clubs she managed. The following week, Brazilian authorities announced they would block the planned South American tour and the government's Department of Press and Propaganda announced that it would begin censoring reporting on women's football. In April 1941, the Ministry of Health issued Decree-law 3,199, which banned women from taking part in sports "incompatible with the conditions of their nature," including football. As a result, existing women's teams were forcibly disbanded and attempts to establish new teams were blocked.

During the following years, some women would campaign against the ban, and some informal women's matches were held in defiance of the ban, especially beginning in the late 1950s. The ban received support from João Havelange, head of the Brazilian Sports Confederation from 1958 to 1973 and afterwards President of FIFA until 1998. In 1965, following the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état, the military dictatorship in Brazil announced that it would maintain the ban, and the ban subsequently became a target of feminist resistance to the dictatorship.

In 1979, the dictatorship lifted the ban. However, new teams and competitions that had been founded after the end of the ban soon encountered significant prejudice, sometimes violent, and by 2001, all the national women's competitions in the country had folded. It would take until 2013 for the Campeonato Brasileiro de Futebol Feminino Série A1 to be established.

Brunei

Under a fatwa issued in 1974, women's football is currently banned in the country.

Canada

The Dominion of Canada Football Association voted to ban women's football on 5 September 1922, following the ban in England.

Czechoslovakia In April 1957, the Czechoslovak Football Association implemented a ban on women's football, stating that it was "not healthy."

Denmark

Following the 1971 Women's World Cup, in which the unofficial Danish national team were champions, the Danish Football Union (DBU) announced that it would continue to ban women from football. DBU chair Vilhelm Skousen declared that the ban would last as long as he lived, saying that "we cannot and will not take [women's football] seriously." However, the following year, UEFA ruled that national associations had to incorporate women's football, and the Danish ban was lifted. The DBU subsequently disestablished the unofficial competitions and teams the players were forced to sign up to an entirely new system created from scratch. The DBU further instituted a rule that Danish teams could only compete internationally against other officially-recognised teams, limiting the options available to the new official women's teams.

France

In 1919, the French Football Federation formally declared that it would not admit women, but did not formally ban the sport. In response, the Fédération des sociétés féminines sportives de France (FSFSF), which had been formed in 1917, began to organise women's football competitions. The FSFSF continued to oversee women's football until 1933, when the French Football Federation formally instituted a ban on women's football. Some unofficial competitions would continue until 1941, when the fascist Vichy government made women's football illegal. The ban was also applied to all the territories of the French colonial empire.

Following the end of World War II, the French Football Federation continued the ban, despite some attempts by women to re-establish the sport in the late 1940s and again in the mid-1960s. It would take until March 1970 for the Federation to lift its ban on women's football. When the ban was lifted, however, the Federation initially imposed a number of limits on the sport, including shorter match lengths and smaller balls. Mixed gender matches would remain banned.

Germany

Cold War In West Germany, the idea of organising women's football competitions surged after the men's national team won the 1954 FIFA World Cup. In response, the German Football Association (DFB) imposed a ban on women's football in 1955. To justify the ban, the DFB claimed that the roughness of the sport would damage women's fertility and health as well as representing an event inappropriate for public viewing, saying that "in the fight for the ball, female grace disappears, body and soul are inevitably damaged, and the public parading of the body is offensive and indecent." The ban was met with resistance, particularly following the advent of the West German student movement in the late-1960s, but attempts to organise matches were often broken up by police. The ban was lifted on 31 October 1970, as the DFB concluded that if it did not take control of and institutionalise the sport within the DFB then, there was a growing risk that it might never be able to. Following the end of the ban, the DFB initially imposed a number of restrictions on women's matches, including limiting the playing time to two 30-minute halves, only allowing matches to be organised during warm weather, disallowing the use of studs on football boots, and disallowing the display of sponsorships on football shirts. It would take until 1982 for the DFB to form West Germany women's national football team.

Unlike the West German authorities, the Deutscher Fußball-Verband der DDR did not impose a ban on women's football in East Germany, however, early attempts to set up teams were met with obstruction from officials. In 1969, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany decreed that only men's football was eligible for funding as an elite sport. The East Germany women's national football team would only ever play a single match, in May 1990.

Iran

Women's football began to emerge in Iran during the late 1960s. In 1970, the Iranian government formally allowed women to use football fields without being accompanied by men. In 1971, the Taj Ladies Football Club became the first official women's club to be established, and the Iran women's national football team playing its first match. Following the Iranian Revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, however, all women's sports in Iran were banned. The ban would last until the late 1980s, when women's sports in the country were gradually revived, particularly under the initiative of Faiza Rafsanjani, daughter of the Irainian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. In the late-1990s, the first official women's match since the Iranian Revolution was held, and the national women's team was reformed in 2005.

Malaysia In mid-1961, the Johor Bahru FA denied that it would allow women's football competitions to be organised, saying that "we don't want to make it a spectacle. It is certainly not a game for women."

Netherlands

In 1896, Sparta Rotterdam attempted to organise a women's football team to play in a friendly against the British Ladies' Football Club. However, the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) argued that the match would damage the sport's reputation and ordered the club to cancel the match. The KNVB continued to ban women's football until 1971.

Women's football in the Netherlands would continue to face discrimination following the lifting of the ban. Annelies Knoppers and Anton Anthonissen of the University of Utrecht have noted that the KNVB "initially did little to promote women’s soccer," including organising little in the way of formal competitive structures and setting a minimum age of 14 for girls to participate in formally organised youth teams.

Nigeria

Colonial Nigeria