Lingerie football set to prove a hit
LINGERIE Football League. The name conjures up images of sexy women running around in their underwear and playing some form of modified football.
Strangely enough, that pretty much sums things up.
But one of the stars of the game, the three-time defensive player of the year for Tampa Breeze in the US competition, Liz Gorman, says the game is changing rapidly and Brisbane fans will get to see the real thing at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre tomorrow night.
Australia will gets its first taste of the LFL when two teams of all-stars from the US league show off their talents in what Gorman says will be a no-holds barred demonstration of why the sport is rated one of the fastest-growing in the world.
"When the league started (in 2009-10) a lot of the girls did come out for the modelling aspect, the glamour side of things ... probably because of the name and way it was marketed," the former semi-pro soccer player said.
"But since we've been getting more and more exposure, it's opened the game up to a lot more athletes.
"It's certainly not pretend. People who come along will see full contact ... a lot of blood. I love seeing people's reactions to the big hits."
Plenty will also pay to see some of the world's hottest women athletes dressed in uniforms that leave little to the imagination.
But as Gorman, 25, said, "you see more than that when you go to the beach", or watch beach volleyballers, for example.
At the same time, she said she understood the reaction, underlined earlier in the week by Federal Sports Minister Kate Lundy, who labelled the sport "a cheap, degrading perv".
"I'm used to the reaction," Gorman said. "A lot of people make judgements before they know all the facts."
Gorman said everyone else in Australia had been very welcoming.
"At the moment we're paid to travel, paid for our uniforms, paid for expenses ... but not paid to play," she said. "Hopefully with the increasing international exposure, that will change.
"It really is the next cutting-edge sport for women."
