The Year That Changed Women’s Soccer In Europe

1922 was the first full year in which women’s soccer was outlawed in England, the victim of a sexist preconception as a game ‘quite unsuitable for females’. A century on, in 2022, the women’s game has reclaimed its position in the mainstream, after a year of headline-making and record-breaking around Europe.

At the time of The Football Association’s edict which lasted for 50 years, women’s soccer in England was burgeoning with the all-star Preston-based Dick, Kerr Ladies selling out grounds around the country and attracting headlines wherever they travelled to play around the world.

Since the ban was overturned in 1971, the women’s game has existed on the periphery of soccer, often belittled and ridiculed and never garnering the mainstream media interest or respect it once had. Progress towards equality has been made but in 2022, something changed.

Ten days into the New Year, defending European Champions, FC Barcelona announced they would move their women’s Champions League quarter-final match to their legendary Camp Nou stadium, the largest in Europe, with the express aim of selling-out the ground and breaking the official world record attendance for a women’s sporting event.

The subsequent marketing drive and media interest became a whirlwind driving the women’s game forward at every level. With the seeds sown by the European governing body, UEFA, the previous year by the creation of a first-ever group stage for the women’s Champions League, financed by a centralized television contract and women’s-specific sponsors, an unstoppable momentum was generated.

When the world record attendance of 91,533 was achieved at Camp Nou on March 30, it made headlines around the globe, not only as the biggest crowd for a women’s match, but the largest for any soccer match played in Europe that season. To prove that such crowds were not outliers, the record was broken again the following month, as 91,648 watched Barcelona’s semi-final against Wolfsburg at the same venue.

For all Barcelona’s dominance of the off-field narrative, they relinquished their European title to the enduring superpower of the women’s game. Olympique Lyonnais overcame the Catalan side to win an eighth Champions League final in which Ada Hegerberg, the sport’s first Ballon D’Or winner, proved her match-winning quality was eternal by scoring in a fourth European Cup final, a feat not achieved since Alfredo Di Stéfano in the 1950s. The match was streamed live by 3.6 million people across the world.

It now seemed logical, rather than far-fetched, that matches at the summer’s showpiece international tournament, the UEFA Women’s Euro in England, would also break records for attendance and viewership. Well over half a million people, more than double the previous record, attended the 31 matches.

Yet the impact of the tournament was far bigger than numbers through the turnstiles. The nine host cities experienced a £81 million ($97.7 million) economic boost during July. The final was not only watched by a tournament record of 87,192 at Wembley Stadium but by a peak television audience of 17.4 million on the BBC. The image of Chloe Kelly ripping off her shirt to celebrate the goal which won the tournament for the hosts, has become symbolic of how the women’s game has thrown off the shackles of the restraints imposed upon it by society ever since the ban in 1921.

In the immediate aftermath of the tournament, a friendly international at Wembley Stadium between the new European champions and world champions, the United States, sold out within 24 hours to become the fastest-selling women’s match of all time. The player of the match in the final, England’s Keira Walsh then became the sport’s first $500,000 player, moving to Barcelona from Manchester City for a world-record transfer fee.

With the financial imperative now undeniable, clubs are increasingly willing to play women’s Champions League matches in their main stadiums and records in attendance figures are now across the board. Over a quarter of a million fans watched matches this autumn in the group stage of the competition, up 66% on last season.

In England, the legacy of victory in the UEFA Women’s Euro has created a surge of interest in the club game, with attendances in the Women’s Super League up 227% on the previous season and even gates in the second tier Women’s Championship up 86%. In Germany, crowds in the first half of the Frauen Bundesliga are up a staggering 277% on last season with total attendance figures already exceeding the record for an entire season set back in 2013/14.

There remains progress to be made. Unlike the men’s game, international women’s soccer in Europe is increasingly weighted towards the richer western nations. With the sporting sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation, none of the sixteen finalists at UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 were from Eastern Europe, something that will be replicated at next summer’s Women’s World Cup finals.

Similarly, the increasing wealth in the UEFA Women’s Champions League is threatening to create a cartel of Western European clubs, as for the second successive season, the eight quarter-finalists will all be representatives from the continent’s top five leagues – England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain – the first time this has recurred in the competition’s history. A worrying trend for a governing body aiming to represent 55 member nations.

Then there is player welfare. For a generation of women who grew up in a part-time sport, there are indications that the sudden jump to becoming fully-professional players is being made without the necessary safeguards and research into protecting their well-being.

The wealth in the women’s game is still being driven by international tournaments which are being expanded to generate revenue. The Covid-enforced postponement of the UEFA Women’s Euro from 2021 to 2022 has concertinered the normal cycle of the women’s calendar leading to five international tournaments in successive summers.

Throw in the fact that UEFA and FIFA have both committed themselves to introducing new international tournaments during the club season – the UEFA Women’s Nations League and FIFA Women’s Club World Cup – it is easy to see why the top players may feel overstretched.

The year was unfortunately been peppered with a succession of the world’s leading female players – Tierna Davidson, Ellie Carpenter, Catarina Macario, Alexia Putellas, Simone Magill, Marie Katoto, Deanne Rose, Giulia Gwinn, Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema – suffering the same injury to their anterior cruciate ligaments and questions being asked as to whether too much was being asked of them.

Nevertheless, going into 2023, the women’s game has much to look forward to centering around the first-ever 32-nation FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. More records will be broken in the coming year, but the difference is now, it will not be a surprise. Women’s soccer is now justifiably seen as one of the leading sports in the world and its potential is only just staring to be unleashed.