Key Points
Ahead of Brazils opening match on Monday at the Womens World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, Mendes recalled the lengths she went to in order to fulfill her dream of becoming a footballer...
As a girl in the 1970s she gave ice cream to the boys she played with in Camacari in Brazils impoverished northeast in exchange for an early warning of the arrival of police busting girls flouting the prohibition..
The cops treated me well, but some said I couldnt play because football was for men.. Then-president Getulio Vargas promulgated a decree in 1941 to ban girls and women from football at a time many believed that participation in sport could inhibit childbearing ability...
Football associations in other countries, such as Britain, Germany and France, also barred women from the sport, but Brazils ban was the only one decreed by law..
While many like Mendes continued to play, the 38-year prohibition stunted development of the sport among Brazilian women during a period in which their male counterparts lifted three of their five World Cups...
