Next, the EC drug must also be transferred to the major leagues of different countries, writes Urheilu’s Hinni Hirvonen.
– This game hasn’t even started yet and the house is shaking from this atmosphere!
Sports expert Marianne Miettinen had to shout into the microphone so that the comments from the side of the field about the EC final could be heard.
Television images of a full Wembley gave me goosebumps. Already during the warm-up, the stadium, which could hold 90,000 spectators, was almost full of fans of both teams, who cheered their favorite team wildly.
Already hours before the kick-off, photos of football fans heading to the stadium started pouring into image services and social media. Women and men, girls and boys, young and old. Families, groups of girls and hordes of boys.
Audience records were broken even before the European Championships, when Barcelona filled the legendary Camp Nou in the Champions League, no less than twice. More than 43 pairs of eyes watched the semi-final between PSG and Lyon at the Parc des Princes in Paris.
In May, more than 49,000 spectators gathered at Wembley, the stage of the EC final, to watch Chelsea and Manchester City play for the FA Cup victory.
In Sweden, 33,000 spectators showed up in the stands to accompany the women’s national team to the European Championships in a practice match against Brazil.
It is no longer necessary to talk about women’s football as a phenomenon. In the European Championships, records have also been broken in the media around the world. When England’s women’s national team secured their place in the European Championship final, the BBC’s sports front page was full of women’s football-only news. “The Lioness” was also praised on the pages of British magazines.
The interest was greater than ever before.
In England and throughout Europe, the matches have broken TV records.
Even though at the time of the first group, the games were hardly visible outside of game days, at least in Milton Keynes, London and Manchester, messages from England said that as the final match approached, the whole country woke up to a stronger football addiction. Miettinen revealed that even commentator Matti Härkönen’s English prepaid subscription received a message that all the company’s network connections are free, so that no one would miss the EC final.
That is, in a country where women’s football was still banned in 1970.
However, the truth is that the Super League, which is also starred by the top players of the European Championship, is mostly played far from the big stages. The Superliga is currently the best major league in Europe. Superliga teams are only allowed to visit the men’s top stadiums occasionally.
Next season Emma Koiviston Liverpool will play at Anfield for the first time since November 2019 when they host local rivals Everton in late September. Manchester City and Manchester United will play at the City Men’s Stadium in November. Arsenal have announced that the women’s team will play their Champions League matches at the men’s stadium instead of Meadow Park.
In the spring, I visited the local match between the English champion Chelsea and Arsenal, who eventually won the silver by a point. The experience can be compared to my hometown club Honka playing their home match at Riihimäki. The sanitary facilities and catering were straight out of the Tapiola sports park.
The match was sold out, with a reported crowd of around 3,300.
Just getting to Kingsmeadow, Chelsea’s home stadium, cost more than a £10 one-way match ticket, even though we took the local train. The journey from central London took an hour and a half in total. You were not allowed to take a handbag of the same size into the stadium, which allowed entry to Stamford Bridge for the men’s Premier League match. There was no noise, and the warden asked to take the bag to the car and take it into custody.
I really wasn’t used to tourists at the stadium.
There, hidden from the big lights, they played Vivianne Miedeman and by Sam Kerr superstars like And since September, they play again several times a week.
This is the case with almost all clubs in the Superliga. Whereas men play in giant stadiums with good connections, women play in much smaller venues, far from city centers.
Women’s football has shown that there is interest. The level of the game has risen rapidly in recent years.
Next, the focus is on the major leagues: match events must be created believable and attractive also in the national leagues. The European Championship drug must be utilized in everyday life, especially in England, which is celebrating its first ever European Championship gold.
Match events must be created to which the clubs attract not only locals but also tourists – who are ready to pay for tickets even when their prices inevitably rise with interest.