You can feel it in the atmosphere, hear it whisper in the breeze – american footballcomes home. But actually this time.
England’s unstoppable march through the stages of the Euros for ladies this summer was a joy to watch. The Lionesses gained confidence and conviction in every round, Sweden’s 4-0 defeat secured their place in the final and brought them one step closer to making history at Wembley.
As a seasoned women’s sports fan, it was both exciting and encouraging to see the mounting wave of support for these athletes. Twitter threads are raving about the breathtaking beauty of Alessia Russothe back heel, Ian Wright telling the world this is as proud as he’s ever been ‘from any side of England’, the back pages of the papers are rightly plastered with gleeful images of the game’s brightest stars.
The ripples of enthusiasm also spread far beyond our social media bubbles. England’s semi-final victory garnered a peak audience of 9.3 million viewers on BBC One, making it one of the most watched television broadcasts of the year.
A little girl in the crowd captured the hearts of the nation as she danced in a frenzied feast. The players stayed on the field 20 minutes after the final whistle, because the fans simply couldn’t get enough.
The country is good and real behind this England squad – and I love seeing it. But as we approach the final against Germany, I am also filled with fear. I worry that a loss would not only mean heartache for this campaign, but could also undo the vital steps forward – in terms of exposure, recognition and support – that have been made in recent years.
It’s a concern unique to women’s sports fans.
Aside from the media hype, the giant billboards and the deafening choruses of Sweet Caroline, there is still a deep-seated gender inequality in football – and we shouldn’t let the excitement of reaching a final distract us from this reality.
The men’s side also reached a European Championship final in 2020, but before that they hadn’t entered the final stages of a major international tournament since 1966. Yes, there is always some backlash, grumbles of criticism, layoffs of managers, when the men don’t deliver. But as mediocre as they perform, they will still overcrowd stadiums, pull in millions of viewers and attract hugely lucrative sponsorship deals.
The men of England may fail, and fail, and fail again; but I fear the women will not have this luxury.
A March Telegraph survey found that Women’s Super League players earn just £20,000 a year, with even the highest-paid players earning 50 times less than their male counterparts.
Things have improved over the past ten years, but the competition has only turned professional since 2018 and it is still a struggle for many athletes to make a living from playing at the highest level.
The fact that interest in the Women’s European Championship has grown so strongly as the team continues to win matches is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. However, it also rings alarm bells that this tidal wave of enthusiasm could be both precarious and conditional for a world champion.
In 2016, the Australian women’s soccer team was unfairly torn apart in the national press for losing to a team of teenage boys, leaving players wondering why an exhibition game deserved so much media attention.
Megan Rapinoe was relentlessly trolled online after the US suffered a shock loss at the Olympics last year. Some even suggested that the result was a justification for the women to be paid less than the men, despite the fact that it was the party’s first defeat in two years.
It is, of course, inevitable in sport that success comes with support. That’s just how sports work. The more successful a team is, the more fans they will get – Manchester United is one of the biggest clubs in the world thanks to a staggering accumulation of trophies and league wins.
This is not a bad thing. The fact that new fans come to watch the Lionesses because they are doing so well is a crucial element in the growth of the women’s game. But it’s vital that this support doesn’t fall off a cliff the moment the team loses a match or has a bad run.
To really sustain this progress, we need to allow the women’s side to average just like the men’s fail without bleeding fans, media attention, and sponsor financial support.
It is a problem that is spreading more widely in women’s sport. in 2018, England Netball won gold at the Commonwealth Games, beating the Aussies on their home turf in a moment that will live in my mind forever, rent-free. It was a catastrophic result that netballers saw on the 10 a.m. news and on the front pages of national newspapers.
As a lifelong netball fan reporting on the sport for years, this recognition and sudden surge in interest felt monumental. But it was also painful to see that to gain this unprecedented level of mainstream support, the team had to take a spectacular, historic win. These impossibly high expectations are not placed on men’s sport.
The sport is still at the pinnacle of this success, with England Netball recently achieving its highest level of participation ever. It shows that these moments can lead to lasting change, as long as they are addressed in the right way.
As England kick off their campaign for their commonwealth games title in Birmingham this week, I hope the enthusiasm of four years ago can be repeated – whether they make it to the top of the podium or not.
Exactly a decade after the London 2012 Olympics, a turning point for women’s sports in this country, we still have a long way to go to achieve a gender equality that lasts beyond a specific moment of success. Whatever happens in the final on Sunday, I hope this enthusiasm for both the Lionesses and women’s football continues to grow.
Real progress means women’s teams can underperform, be knocked out in the first round, screw up a penalty shootout and still be considered worthy of your support.
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