In the European football championships, the smaller stadiums and the video refereeing system equipped with fewer cameras have been the talk of the town. If Uefa wants to talk about the same sport, now is the time for action, writes Urheilu’s Hinni Hirvonen.
Not women’s football, women play football.
The message of one of the main sponsors of the games on the outskirts of the stadium has been clear during the European Championships.
This is what the European football confederation Uefa has also been happy to emphasize in its statements. In 2019 Uefa launched the first in history (you go to another service) the women’s football strategy, which aimed to double the number of women playing football, change assumptions about women’s football and double the reach and value of the Women’s European Championship finals and the Champions League within five years.
– Women’s football is today’s football, not tomorrow’s. It is UEFA’s task to move women’s sport forward. That’s why Uefa makes significant financial investments for the sport, so that the goals can be high and European football can become as big as possible. Now is the time for action, Chairman by Aleksander Čefer pronounced solemnly.
In order to fulfill the expectations, the help of the sports community is also needed.
It is true that Uefa has taken measures to also advance the women’s sport. But not enough, as the ongoing EC final tournament has shown.
– It’s shocking that we play in England, where there are many big stadiums, and we get to play in a training ground with 5,000 spectators. This is embarrassing and does not show us the respect we deserve. They have not prepared for the fact that we will be able to sell more than 4,000 tickets. It’s disrespectful to women’s football.
The European Championships have broken audience records one after another. The all-time crowd record of the European Championship was already broken in the opening series, when there were still 15 matches to be played. Especially the host country England would probably have had more willing spectators for the matches, but despite that, the hosts have played, for example, both of their follow-up games in stadiums with around 30,000 spectators.
Small stadiums have also become a problem for working media. From the beginning, there weren’t enough accreditations for all willing journalists, but even the journalists who received tournament accreditation have had problems getting match-specific accreditations – simply because there is not enough working space for the media in the stadiums.
In the end, McElwee got into the match with the help of a sponsor.
Regardless: if we want to talk about an equal sport, the conditions and prerequisites in the competitions organized by the European umbrella organization should also be uniform.
However, this has not been the case with video refereeing either. In Sweden, there was a huge criticism of the video refereeing of the EC final tournament at the latest when Stina Blackstenius goal disallowed against Belgium. It was a shot rejected by the tournament’s Fifth Sweden after a VAR check.
Uefa responded to the criticism by claiming that the production was equivalent to the men’s Champions League. In a message to the Swedish news agency TT, Uefa claimed that there are more VAR cameras than the men’s Champions League and European Championship, because the women’s European Championship final tournament also has offside and EPTS cameras.
However, according to a dismayed Eriksson, Uefa is lying and distorting the statistics. The EPTS signal system (Electronic Performance and Tracking Systems) tracks the movements of everyone on the field, but Eriksson compares counting EPTS to help VAR to counting coaches as players.
The questionable VAR judgments of the European Championship were also discussed on Tuesday in Urheilu’s broadcast.
– It was not resolved today, Urheilu’s expert Marianne Miettinen stated, but admitted that deciding the final on a questionable VAR ruling would be a disaster.
There are other differences in the productions. Whereas in the men’s games both playing teams were followed by helicopters from the hotel, in the women’s European Championship only a few England games have been taken from a helicopter. Miettinen pointed out that there is no tactical perspective available to the experts either, which would make the work of the experts easier.
Many may be regarded as small streams, but from small streams a big river is born.
If less effort is put into TV production than men’s, this is also reflected in the end result, which is not as attractive.
And we haven’t gotten to the prize money yet.
Uefa doubled the pot for this year’s EC final tournament from eight million to sixteen million, but there is still a long way to go for the men’s EC final tournament. Each country that made it to the EC final tournament received more than nine million euros.
Many countries have decided otherwise. For example, in Finland, women’s and men’s national team players have enjoyed uniform national team allowances since 2019.
If Uefa wants to talk about the same sport, now is the time for action.