Thoughts on Promoting Women’s Football in the UK

Women’s footballer against a crowded stadium backdrop

As a supporter and advocate of women’s football (soccer), it was with great interest that I read how the English Football Association (FA) yesterday launched a new three-year strategy focused on building on the momentum gained in recent years to further promote the women’s professional game. This is a welcome move by an organisation which 100 years ago effectively banned women from participating in football.

There are three main areas in which the FA are focusing: nurturing and attracting talent, growing and sustaining audiences and increasing revenue going into the game. It also hopes to show female footballers as role models and, in doing so, encourage more to get involved.

Even before this report was published, I’d been thinking about writing this post because, in my mind, there are some really simple ways to get more people watching the women’s game. I’d like to share these below…

• Let’s stop treating women’s football as if it is a different sport to men’s football. It isn’t. The rules are exactly the same and we — and especially the media — must stop talking as if it is some strange new phenomena. I read a comment on an Instagram post earlier this year in which a man implied that it was only men’s football that was England’s national sport, not women’s. I’m not sure where this opinion came from (the Middles Ages?), but needless to say, I put him right. Football is England’s national sport and it doesn’t matter who is playing it.
• The majority of the biggest football clubs, and many lower tier clubs now, have both men’s and women’s teams. More should be done to show them as part of the same club. This could be done, as Manchester City have shown, by only having one social media account for the club and not one for the women’s team and one for the men’s. Report on the women’s team within the same feed as that of the men’s. Yes, there will be some male supporters, stuck in the past with their prejudices and discriminatory views who don’t like it, but so what? If women’s football is to ever properly take off, clubs and authorities have to be strong and stand up to these bigots. They’re doing it with racism, let’s do it with gender equality too.
• Clubs and footballing authorities have to do more to allow fans to watch both the men’s and women’s teams of the same club play, whether in person or on TV. I’ve been of this view since 2019, when West Ham United (the team I have supported all my life) took on Manchester City on the Women’s FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. The fixture clashed with the men’s teams last home game of the season. Although it caused a debate across social media, neither game was moved forcing fans, myself included, to choose between matches. I chose Wembley over The London Stadium on that occasion, many thousands didn’t. Although the attendance that day was large one, it could have been so much bigger with a little compromise.
  Fans, who might want to see both the men’s and women’s teams of their club, still have similar decisions to make two years later. As the final whistle blew on West Ham men’s teams victory over Liverpool last week, across London, the women were entering the field to take on Arsenal. Nobody could have made it to watch both games. Even Kate Longhurst, West Ham’s midfielder and lifelong supporter of the team, complained on Twitter.
  The same happens for other teams too.
  Surely, if the FA are serious about increasing attendances at women’s football matches, they have to start considering the thousands of fans at the men’s games and play them on different days of the weekend or at either end of the same day?

• I’ve lost count of the amount of times I have had to put someone right on social media when they bemoan the fact that so many players are released by teams each summer. Because of the fact that there isn’t as much money in the women’s game as there is in the men’s, women often sign short (sometimes very short) contracts and players naturally move around to where they will make more money. Clubs have to be more transparent, explain this rather than just putting out a retained list at the end of the season or wishing a player success as she moves to a bigger club. I’m sure, with a little more information, many wouldn’t be quite as dismissive. Only by supporting the game will their be more money in women’s football.
• The FA Player, an online facility for people to watch women’s football live, is a great thing often let down by poor standards of commentary; mispronunciation of names and mistaken identity are common place. It would be a much better viewing experience if this was to improve.
• Referring to West Ham again, though I’m certain it will be the same for other clubs too, members of the women’s team often post pictures taken at The London Stadium; groups of the players going along to watch and support the men’s team. I see other players post about their national men’s team or bigger names in men’s football.
  Sadly, it is incredibly rare to see a Premier League player posting about women’s football. This needs to happen; maybe not every week, but at least if they get a good result, make a final or achieve some level of success. If more men are to be encouraged to watch women’s football, they need to know that their heroes and role models, the men they watch play week in and week out, are backing the women’s game.
  But it’s not just players: more men who support the women’s game need to speak out, encourage others to do the same. It’s what I’m doing. I wish others would be more vocal in their support too.

All of these points listed are my own opinion and there might well be arguments for and against them. But to ignore ideas like this, especially when they wouldn’t cost too much to implement, simply requiring a little common sense and compromise, would, I feel, be very shortsighted.