June 19 – The growth of the women’s club game has sparked a new area of stats and strategic data focus. One of the findings of a new report is that a financial divide between clubs is already starting to take place, a trend mirroring the men’s game.
The CIES Football Observatory has looked at the composition of women’s squads in five major leagues – the top divisions in Germany, Sweden, France and England, and the Women’s National Soccer League in the US.
The researchers say that the concentration of full internationals in a small number of clubs indicates the progression of a financial divide and that “as for the men’s game, without corrective measures, financial divides between clubs both at national and international level will increase. The economic development will indeed benefit some clubs and leagues much more than others.”
They go on to say that “from this perspective, it is not a chance that dominant men’s teams such as Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Paris St-Germain, Arsenal or Manchester City are in the best positions of the table of teams fielding the highest percentage of full internationals. In the top ten rankings, only Rosengård and North Carolina Courage have no professional team at men’s level.”
The report also finds that while the age of professional women’s players is on average younger than male professionals, women professionals are getting older. A trend that the authors expect to continue as the women’s leagues mature.
A second important trend the CIES point to is the growth of the expatriate players in the leagues. Although still lower than most competitive men’s leagues, the number of expatriate footballers in women’s clubs surveyed is increasing and will continue to do so, as well as an increase in the numbers of different countries of origin of the players.
See the full CIES Football Observatory findings at Monthly Report
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