October 24 – The English FA is to increase its budget for women’s football to £17.7 million, a 16% increase, as the national governing body seeks to increase primary school (up to age 11) participation by girls in the game from its current 40%.
The women’s game in England has captured the imagination of football supporters following the success of coming third in the Canada 2015 World Cup, and the follow-on higher media profile the players have generated.
The Women’s Super League (WSL) has been revamped with a change of season that will go from summer to winter in 2017/18 and will be in line with the other European leagues, making it easier to prepare national teams – where England currently have a real ambition for success.
The WSL is controlled by the FA (unlike the men’s Premier League) and the FA is keen to see it develop both in terms of encouraging more women’s teams from the major men’s clubs, but also financially. FIFA are also looking at the market for women’s football having launched their first tender for Women’s World Cup rights in what they perceive to be the easier and richer pickings of the UK broadcast market.
Speaking the Guardian, FA chief executive Martin Glenn said: “Women’s football clubs are still an investment, they don’t make money yet. We own that league and have to make sure the right incentives are in place to continue that investment.”
Glenn said the FA wanted to “double the number of women playing and watching the game by the end of the decade, investing heavily to fuel an ambitious growth plan.”
“Only four in 10 girls play at primary school, so the job for the next four years is to capture more of the talent who are playing and develop them more quickly,” he said.
This week the FA is set to announce international broadcast revenue for its flaghship men’s FA Cup at more than £800 million over six years. A deal that Glenn described as “transformational”.
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