Women’s football has seen an immense growth over the past few years but there is still a huge amount of work to be done to reach the levels of the men’s game. The Euro 2022 win saw a large amount of viewership, but other competitions such as the Women’s Super League (WSL) and the Women’s FA Cup still lack the support that is essential for the sport to be positively compared to the heavily dominant men’s version. This could be due to it being England represented in the European Championships, but it could also come down to a lack of availability to watch the matches in these given competitions and little advertisement of the matches. For example, many of the WSL games are played during Premier League games, therefore the majority of football fans will choose to watch the Premier League game as they will be more aware of the players, most likely know more about the Premier League game as the matches will be advertised weeks before, and could have little knowledge of the women’s matches due to little information being given out about coverage of the competitions. The WSL has experienced a significant increase in viewership in the 2022/2023 season, potentially due to the large success of the European Championships last year, but there is still a lot of work needed to improve the numbers.
For example, the world record transfer fee in the women’s game is £400,000 – Kiera Walsh made history by becoming the most expensive transfer in women’s football when signing for Barcelona in September 2022, months after her Euro 2022 success. In comparison, the world record transfer in the men’s game was Neymar Jr’s move to PSG in 2017 where he joined in a deal worth over £190m. A top player in the women’s game is sold for the same price you would expect a League Two player to be sold in the men’s game, highlighting the clear difference between the two.
Another example of there needing to be more done for the women’s game to be advanced is the stadiums they play at. Manchester United’s women’s team play at Leigh Sports Village, a stadium with a capacity of 12,000 seats, but the men’s side play at Old Trafford, holding over 70,000 seats… an astonishing difference! The reason behind this is there not being as much money within women’s football, as there aren’t as many followers as the Premier League for example, and clubs will not sell out full stadiums, therefore it saves finances by playing in smaller grounds. In order for this to have change, the women’s game needs a much larger following, and this can be achieved through more advertisements, sponsorships and coverage. Sky Sports and BBC usually televise one or two games every weekend, but more coverage would lead to a larger audience.
Liverpool are trying to accommodate their women’s team at the iconic Melwood Training Ground after Jurgen Klopp’s side left the complex in 2020 for the new £50m AXA Training Centre. LFC Women currently train at Tranmere Rovers’ the Campus training ground but are set to have their own training facilities in the summer. This shows signs of progression within the sport, but women’s football is still far behind men’s, especially when it comes to financial backing. More needs to be done for the gap between men’s and women’s football to be shortened, and with more sponsorship deals, televised coverage and more finances being pushed towards the women’s game from the clubs, rather than it all being spent on their men’s teams.
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