League of their own
Big kick-off for rugby and football women
For those who have dedicated themselves to the success of women’s football, the most important battle has already been won. The stigma attached to girls playing the game, the discrimination, the derision, was removed years ago. But the struggle is not over and now comes the even harder part.
For all the advances, the success of the England team in reaching the semi-finals of both the World Cup and the European Championship, the leap in participation numbers and steady growth of a supporter base, women’s football remains, in many ways, a minority sport. Kelly Simmons, the Football Association’s new director of women’s football, is leading the charge to break into the mainstream.
This weekend brings the start of a new Super League season and for the first time all 11 teams (as well as Manchester United in the second tier) are full-time, professional operations. It is a significant moment, which, with the creation of dedicated academy structures, is designed to ensure football is as realistic a career choice for women players as it is for men.
That is only part of the struggle. With average crowds in the WSL hovering about the 900 mark, there remains huge scope for growth. While football is the fastest-growing participation sport among girls in the UK, there is an unquenchable thirst to expand.
“I believe that women’s football can be the first female team sport to break into the mainstream,” Simmons said. “What I mean by that is that there are a lot of women’s sports that have peaks of interest at the Olympics or major tournaments, but they then disappear. With the clubs we have and the investment taking place, we can be that breakthrough sport where the players are household names playing in front of larger crowds at sustainable clubs.
“This is a momentous moment for women’s football. The creation of an entirely professional Super League is probably the most significant change there has been since the WSL was launched in 2011. We have all the major clubs in England represented by a women’s team and if you look at Manchester United, they got more than 5,000 people watching their first game.
“We now have a Super League in which all the players are able to train full time – but it’s not just about training, it’s about sport science, it’s about getting the right amount of rest and medical support. It’s about enabling them to live as an elite footballer able to compete on a global stage. The FA has an ambition to make sure the clubs have everything they need to be the best they can be.”
The relaunch of the WSL is one part of a four-pronged strategy. Next summer, both England and
Scotland will play in the World Cup in France, with the former likely to be among the favourites. Last summer, England’s semi-final against Holland was watched by four million people. That record television audience for a women’s game will almost certainly be broken next year.
After that, England intend to send a team to the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020, under the Great Britain flag, with players from the other home nations also involved. In 2021, England are set to host the European Championship, the first major tournament staged in this country since the men’s equivalent in 1996.
“The women’s game really needs a successful England side,”
Simmons explained. “We’ve potentially got three incredible years coming up, with the World Cup, the Olympics and, hopefully, hosting Euro 2021.
“They are three pinnacle moments to really raise the profile of the sport, to turn the players into names people want to follow when they go back to their clubs. England and the clubs working together is fundamental to drive interest.
“Men’s football is so established and so popular, it is almost a pointless comparison, but you’re always going to get it in terms of attendances, revenue and salaries, but I think we can grow and we can continue to develop. We couldn’t do it without the financial support of the men’s clubs, at the moment, but there are ways we can reduce that reliance.”
That reliance can be perilous, creating a geographical anomaly which means there is only one team in the top two divisions, Durham Ladies, located north-east of Manchester. Given half of the England starting XI at the Euros last summer are from the Northeast, Sunderland’s inability to continue running a professional team, because of their recent financial problems, is a flaw in the new structure.
For now, Simmons can only focus on other issues. “Our aim is to create another 6,000 clubs for girls to play, which will double the number we currently have, by 2020,” she explained. “Those clubs are all over the country, so while we may have lost Sunderland from the Super League, girls in the North-east can still play football and they still have that pathway into the professional game.
“We hope that one of the big clubs in the North-east, with our support, will be able to run a professional side in the future. The loss of Sunderland was a blow, but we are still vulnerable when men’s teams are relegated or suffer financial problems, that is why we want to be more sustainable. The best way to do that is to grow club attendances. I don’t want to put a figure on it, but we would like average crowds to be up around the 2,000 mark by 2020. That is what we are working towards.”