Regardless of who you support in football, you can’t have missed the hype surrounding the Women’s World Cup over the last two months. Women’s football has been at the forefront of people’s minds quite a lot recently and has become much more mainstream over the last two years.
The Lionesses have done incredibly well over the last 18 months, from winning the Euros, to getting to the final of the World Cup which took place on the 20th of August 2023. Whilst the result was not what England fans would have wanted, there can be no denying what they’ve done for football.
With the next European champions in 2025, the Lionesses have a lot of work to do to ensure they have a good chance of holding onto their title.
What’s next?
Girl’s football is now becoming more prominent, with teams springing up the length and breadth of the country. Children can play together up to the age of 12, and this is the age where there was a huge shortage of girls’ teams. We love seeing on social media that teams are now being created for young girls, and women, that are supporting and growing their love for the game.
The FA has a number of programmes designed to get women and girls more involved. For 5-11-year-old girls there’s the Weetabix Wildcats – a great initiative that supplies girls with the skills that they can use in football clubs, other sports and in general. They also have casual football programs, club football and are looking at how football in schools can be more inclusive rather than it being a traditionally male sport.
Since 2019, the amount of girls and women playing football has risen to around 3m. This is a huge rise from 2018, when it was 1.7m and a massive leap from 1993 when there were just 10,400 women playing.
The Women’s Super League has been breaking records with stadium attendance, TV viewings and sponsorships. Women’s team usually played at smaller grounds than their male counterparts but this is slowly changing and more women’s teams are playing at the same home grounds. In 2020 38,262 attended the North London Derby which took place at the old Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, this was the largest stadium attendance for any women’s football match and the crowds are only getting bigger.
Women’s football is taking over and it’s something we love to see. We’re proud of the Lionesses for their amazing achievements so far and look forward to the 2025 European Championships!