According to the chairman of the Football Association, Huuhkajat is currently the only successful brand in domestic national team football. The alliance woke up to marketing the Helmare brand well overdue.
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The meager 2,814 spectators witnessed the stinging 1–5 loss of the Finnish women’s national football team against Japan on Monday night.
In contrast, neighboring Sweden and Denmark have broken women’s national team football records this week. The record match between Sweden and Brazil, which is second in Fifa’s rankings, was watched by a record number of spectators at the Friends Arena in Solna on Tuesday. There were as many as 33,218 people in the auditorium.
– Fan culture is much further in Sweden. They have also been successful in value races many times, which we have not done, striker Jutta Rantala commented on Sport.
The Danish national team also set a new audience record a week ago, with 21,542 supporters in the match against Brazil.
– Pretty big difference to our matches. It would be amazing if we could ever get similar readings in Finland, but we still have a lot to do. That kind of fan gives a lot of energy to the team on the field, the midfielder Emmi Alanen comppa.
The Helmari match has been followed by a maximum of 16,334 pairs of eyes on the spot. This was the match of the European Championships played in Finland against Denmark in 2009.
– The fact is that there is currently one brand in Finnish football that attracts the public, and that is Huuhkajat. With regard to helmsmen, there is still a need to significantly increase the brand and increase the awareness of the players, Chairman of the Football Association Ari Lahti to Sports.
In recent years, the Helsinki Olympic Stadium has had an average of 5,000 spectators in the matches.
– That is the right direction, but of course we are still far from reading Sweden and Denmark, Lahti says.
Marketing was raised late
Lahti, the chairman of the Finnish Football Association, says that the Helmari match against Japan was marketed locally in Turku. The Football Association’s own channels were utilized, but not comprehensively. Although the match was disappointing in terms of spectators, according to Lahti, it was positive that there were a lot of women and young girls in the audience in Turku.
What could the Football Association have done better to get more spectators into the game?
– I’m not sure if marketing elsewhere in Finland would have brought thousands more viewers to Turku. Enthusiasts knew that Helmari was playing in Turku. I can’t believe the Helmare brand is still so strong that we’d go any further at this point.
Why is Finland so far from the figures for the other Nordic countries, if it is ten times less than its neighbors?
– At least in Denmark, the game was a special event and the Finnish Football Association wanted to fill Parken. In Sweden, Brazil is also a more interesting opponent than Japan. Nevertheless, we in the Finnish Football Association have woken up late to market women’s football. Work has now begun on it. We have to give time, not even the breakthrough of the Owners in an instant, Lahti says.
The visibility of the helmsmen in the Football Association has been increased by hiring more people to market the team and its players. Efforts have also been made to clarify the brand of the National League. According to Lahti, however, a breakthrough in the popularity of the Helmars would also require the “Puck Party” phenomenon that arose among the Owls.
– The upcoming European Championship is really important, there you can really get those stars. All of Helmar’s women are top runners, but I would raise Natalia Kuikan, Tinja-Riikka Korpela and Linda Sällströmwhich are currently the closest to the Pukkari star, Lahti says.
The small European Championship stages rose to the headlines
Some of the venues at the European Championships in England have been criticized for their capacity. The opening match of the tournament will be played in front of giant audiences at Old Trafford and the final at Wembley, but the other 29 matches of the tournament will be held in smaller stadiums.
The smallest stage can only accommodate 4,400 spectators. Iceland midfielder Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir previously called stadium selection “embarrassing” and “disrespectful.”
Finland will play its block game at a much larger stadium in Milton Keynes with 30,500 seats.
Director of Uefa Women’s Football Nadine Kessler said on Wednesday that the race organizers have strived to achieve the best possible European atmosphere in their stadium selections. A total of almost half a million tickets have been sold for the European Championship in England, which is already more than twice as much as in the previous tournament played in the Netherlands in 2017.
– Although we always strive for ambitious things, we cannot forget the realities either. I am referring to the past. In our previous women’s European Championships, there were an average of 5,000 spectators in the matches.
Helmarit is currently preparing for the European Championships starting next week in the Netherlands. The team will play another pre-match match at Enschede against the Netherlands on Saturday.
– We have to have a better defense game, especially in special situations. We need to improve them considerably, Rantala predicts.
Match against the Netherlands live on ‘s channels on Saturday at 7 p.m.
The European Championships start on 6.7. in the match between England and Austria. Helmarit will play the opening match of the European Championships against Spain on July 8. at 7 p.m.
The matches of the European Championships will be shown on ‘s channels. All about the European Championships on Sport’s competition website.