In recent years Women’s football has generated insurmountable momentum as the beautiful game seeks to expand its horizons.
The FA has shown its clear backing of the women’s game by doubling the prize fund for this years Women’s FA Cup to six million pounds which will greatly improve teams’ opportunities to afford better facilities, massively improving the development of the sport.
University of Gloucestershire’s second team winger Grace Edwards has been playing football from a young age and see’s the positivity of this development;
“The money obviously is a big thing, we need to make more change when it comes to games and accessibility,
“Men’s is shown everywhere all the time, all over social media, it’s played on every TV streaming site, whereas women’s is only on certain one’s, so the more people that can watch it, the more people that get interested in it”.
When searching for the catalyst in this change Edwards had this to offer;
“More representation in the media is definitely helping a lot. Just showing more women playing football is definitely always a good sign because we’re just as good as men in our own right, so we should be able to be seen as well, just as much as the men”.
It’s very apparent that times are changing as the Women’s game is becoming more accessible via viewership figures.
The Women’s Sport Trust found that 20.6 million people tuned into three minutes or more of women’s sport in the first four months of 2023.
Which improved on the 18.9 million who did the same between 1 January and 30 April 2022. The data behind the findings comes from Future Sport & Entertainment, and also shows that 34% of viewers hadn’t watched women’s sport before.
Furthermore, per the BBC, Euro 2022 offered a boost of its own as 53% of those watching the tournament who were new to women’s sport went on to watch more after England won the final.
“The Euros helped a lot, us winning was a massive thing and it sparked loads of people to start playing, people who had played before and now want to get back into it because of how well everyone’s doing and it’s making women want to play football rather than feeling they can’t play”.
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Expanding on this Edwards opened up about her own footballing journey and some issues that are slowly being resolved by the new found inclusivity;
“I used to play football in a mixed team, well I used to play in a boys team, so now that there’s definitely more girls teams about, it’s looking like it’s going in the right direction.
“So rather than girls having to try and make an extra effort to make their way into playing with boys, because there was not an option for them, they now have choice and the paths are easier to find”.
It’s clear the more it’s seen and heard the quicker the women’s game will expand as stigma is extinguished.
Women’s football was also added as a key feature in EA Sports newest game FC 24 which has increased the younger generations awareness of the worlds best players.
Edwards sees this as a fantastic sign despite some misogynistic backlash;
“The more people that can see it, the better, so if women are put everywhere, on games, posters, TV shows, everything, it’s better that way because more people will see that women can play football”.
