How Is Women’s Football Bringing it Home?

 by Jamie Head

Women’s football has been on the rise for the last couple of years, especially due to the success of English football- the Lionesses and English football clubs. With the Lionesses winning the Euros and coming second in the World Cup, I believe that this has helped the Women’s Super League (WSL) grow in fandom.  Players from various parts of the world are desperate to play in a WSL club due to the high quality of the football and potential opportunities given to these football players. Although we have seen such a huge rise in success in the progress of women’s football, I would argue that there is still a long way to go.

Due to the success of the Lionesses many more have gained an interest in this sport meaning the clubs are starting to hit record numbers of attendance. For instance, Arsenal have been one of the best teams for attendance, especially in the bigger main stadiums. We can see that for the past two years they have had the highest average attendance at 15,831 for the 2022-2023 season. Furthermore, on the 10th December 2023 they set a new WSL attendance record of 59,042 for the game against Chelsea at the Emirates Stadium. However, even though we can see this being an excellent increase for Arsenal, many other top teams are not coming close to these figures. The WSL winners for the past 4 years, Chelsea, struggle with attendance at their home ground (Stamford Bridge) and they only had an average of 6,021 last year.

There are a number of reasons for this lack of attendance, you may think it's due to the lack of money being put into the clubs and the WSL not being given opportunities to help with their breakthrough in trying to beat record number of attendance. It was only recently that the WSL players could play at the big stadiums and even now each club is only given 4 or less chances to play at the stadiums (such as Stamford Bridge, Emirates, Old Trafford) and sometimes these matches are moved due to the men’s teams taking priority. Therefore, with most games being held at smaller venues, with less access to public transport, many find it difficult to get to, we can see the result being low attendance. Furthermore, we can see how putting money into the teams and its fans base can benefit as Arsenal has been seen to spend £7.1 million in their women’s programme and employed on average 44 players and staff in the 2021-2022 season. Consequently, this has benefitted them as they now have a larger following.

Even though there are still issues within the WSL, you cannot argue with how far they have come due to the massive increase in support for women’s football. The quality of football has been continuing to grow, as there are now far more top tier international players coming over from places like Australia, Switzerland and even the US (who previously were the main option for players). Furthermore, even with the increase in popularity the women’s games have maintained reasonable prices and a great atmosphere between players and the fans. I think this is the main worry with many fans that increasing popularity could lead to more distant players and less accessible matches, however this hasn’t happened as of yet. While women’s and men’s games will always be publicly compared, it is important to recognise and celebrate the success of women’s football, both nationally and internationally around the world.