Throughout a remarkable Women’s World Cup, superbly hosted by Australia and New Zealand, the Lionesses always found a way. Whether coming from behind against Colombia, winning on penalties against Nigeria, or silencing a partisan home crowd against Australia, this group of England players has shown abundant heart and courage to go with the skill we already knew they possessed.
On Sunday, against a Spanish team whose passing rhythms made them worthy winners of the 2023 World Cup final, they could not find a way. But as manager Sarina Wiegman and her squad digest the bitter disappointment of defeat in the biggest match of these players’ lives, the rest of us can reflect on just how much they have achieved.
As one of football’s great romantics, Danny Blanchflower, once said: “The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory.” Over the course of two summers, the Lionesses have brought glory and honour to the women’s game, embedding it in the national imagination and placing England at the very forefront of what is surely the world’s fastest-growing sport.
Players such as Arsenal’s Alessia Russo and Keira Walsh, who plays for Barcelona, are international stars. For millions of girls who watched them on Sunday, their example has licensed hopes and dreams that even a decade ago would have seemed fanciful. The now professionalised Women’s Super League (WSL), it is worth recalling, was only launched in 2011. In the early 2000s, Lucy Bronze’s parents were forced to drive for hours to locate a girls’ game for the future England fullback, after she was excluded from her home-town boys’ club.
The challenge, just as last summer, is to build on the enthusiasm that these Lionesses have generated through their remarkable level of performance. After the triumph at Women’s Euro 2022, WSL attendances increased by over 200% and more girls are playing the game than ever before. But from the provision of more safe pitches to play on in the evening to delivering equal access in schools, structures and resources need to catch up with the new reality.
The former England player Karen Carney recently published a review of the women’s game, in which she compared it to a “start-up business” where exponential growth is not being matched by adequate investment. Average players’ earnings in the WSL in 2022 were between £25,000 and £27,000, compared with £3m for the men. In the Championship, wages fell as low as a paltry £4,000. Around £88m is invested in men’s football academies each year. The Football Association budget for the female equivalent is £3.25m. Gulfs this wide are simply unjustifiable, given the manifest appeal and reach of modern women’s football.
The World Cup did not come home for the first time since 1966 after all. But in truth, the relevant precedent for yesterday’s sellout showpiece was 1972, when the first England women’s international against Scotland was played in front of about 400 people. The years of hurt that followed were all too real, as generations of female players forged careers against a backdrop of indifference and often outright hostility. They paved the way for these Lionesses to become gamechangers, opening institutional eyes to the vast potential of women’s sport more generally. It now falls to politicians, sponsors and broadcasters to maintain the momentum that has been generated.
