Let’s imagine that the Huuhkajats would face Wales in the EC play-off on Friday at 1 pm.
It would not be possible to watch the match from the couch in Finland, because the host country would not organize television production.
Sound crazy?
On the women’s side, it is still possible.
The Swedish women’s national football team will face Bosnia and Herzegovina in the playoffs of the Nations League on Friday, February 23 at 1:00 p.m. In the training center the match to be played is not made into a TV production at all.
The comparison with Huuhkajie’s EC qualification is a bit far-fetched: the stake in the match is the EC competition place, while Sweden and Bosnia are playing for the A-League place. On the women’s side, the EC qualifiers are also played using the system familiar from the Nations League.
The meeting between Sweden and Bosnia will most likely not have much to tell posterity. Sweden takes a crushing victory and keeps its place in the A-league despite the minor wins in the Nations League matches.
Despite that: it is completely unfathomable that even in 2024 the European Football Association will make this possible.
Of course, Uefa has shown its appreciation for the football played by women also in the draw for the European Championship qualifiers: the draw will take place on March 5, i.e. exactly one month before the first European Championship qualifiers.
The head coach of the helmets Marko Saloranta called Uefa’s actions unmanageable.
Saloranta pointed out how the tight schedule affects the work of the team’s backgrounds: the scouts preparing for the club season only have a month to prepare for the extremely important EC qualifying match.
The team leader has only one month to organize the entire team’s trips to the destination.
The challenges don’t end there.
A month is a very short time to build a big match event. It is hard to imagine that big stadiums would be arranged as game venues with about only a month’s notice.
Take Helmarit for example: Like the Huhkajis, it is quite possible that the Finnish women’s national team will be drawn into the same European Championship qualifying group as England.
The reigning European champion is full of stars: a captain who has returned to the playing field Leah Williamson, Moved to Barcelona for a record sum at one time Keira Walsh, chosen as the world’s best goalkeeper and BBC sports personality of the year Mary Earps and so on.
In a home match, Helmarii would have an all-time place to draw a record crowd even at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium. A great event would require a little more preparation and marketing time than the days of a month.
Uefa hasn’t thought about too many spectators either. It is difficult to book a guest or home trip when the dates and travel destinations are not known until a month before.
Head coach of the England women’s national football team Sarina Wiegman presented again on Tuesday his concerns about women from the international calendar. Although the team piloted by Wiegman will not be seen in the Olympic tournament in Paris this summer, the women will play in the EC qualifiers in July.
Many series will start soon after that, such as the Champions League, which starts early in September. The women’s calendar has also been tight in previous years: for example, in the summer of 2022 England Alessia Russo played in the Champions League qualifiers only 17 days after the EC final.
– The players are constantly asking when is our time to rest. They want to compete, we want the players to stay fit and feel well, which requires rest and sometimes proper rest, Wiegman reminded.
At the same time, female players’ injuries, especially knee ligament injuries, have increased. In 2022, 20 candidates for the Golden Ball as many as five suffered from an anterior cruciate ligament injury.
England’s captain, who was sidelined from the World Cup this summer due to a knee injury Leah Williamson raised his concerns revealed in an interview with The Telegraph. According to Williamson, the public will soon have no players to come and see if the pace of play continues the same.
Uefa has constantly spoken in favor of equality in its statements. Is different programs, great series about equality and then there is reality.
When Uefa gathered last week for its 48th annual congress in Paris, 55 of the 130 general secretaries of the member states and ten of the presidents were women.
When you add the only female member of the UEFA board by Laura McAllistergets together an opening field of eleven players already.
It is difficult to talk about an equal game, Equal Game, with this composition. It is difficult to make decisions about women without women.
However, there is a small light at the end of the tunnel.
Last year, the UEFA board decided to increase share of women in their committees from the current 18 percent to 25 percent.
At last week’s meeting, Uefa decided to increase the number of seats earmarked for women in the 20-seat board from one to two.
McAllister admitted that the profile of the organization does not match the image of a modern organization.
– Of course, we have to do much more, but changes in sports organizations are often slow, he recalled in an interview with the BBC.
Hopefully not too slow. It would be nice to see the best players participating in the soon-to-be-started European Championship qualifiers – on the playing fields they deserve and at a time when work and school you can’t watch the games.