LONDON: England’s Women’s Super League (WSL) commences this weekend hoping to ride the wave of interest that accompanied the Lionesses run to the semi-finals of the World Cup and keep fans coming back for more. For the first time Manchester United are part of a 12-team toptier, making up England’s largest ever professional women’s league, and start with a local derby on Saturday that will be held at Manchester City’s Etihad stadium.
Chelsea also host Tottenham at Stamford Bridge on Sunday as the WSL follows the examples in Spain and Italy last season when Atletico Madrid, Athletic Bilbao and Juventus drew huge grounds for one-off matches at the home of their men’s teams.
West Ham take on Spurs at the London Stadium, home of the 2012 Olympic Games, next month, while Tottenham face defending WSL champions Arsenal at the club’s new state-of-the-art 62,000 capacity stadium in November. “It shows how far it is moved on,” Arsenal and England forward Beth Mead said. “It is showing that movement in the women’s game, that interest and clubs backing it to allow you to play in the big stadiums and hopefully try and get as many people there as possible. “It is exciting for us and exciting for new people coming to watch the women’s game.” Mead was part of the England side that caught the imagination of a nation this summer.
A dramatic World Cup semifinal defeat to the United States for Phil Neville’s women was the most watched television event of the year so far in the United Kingdom, attracting a peak audience of 11.7 million.
“It blew us away and we got a better reach of audience every time we played. I guess we are doing something right,” added Mead. The English Football Association chief executive Martin Glenn said the tournament had moved women’s football “to an absolute mainstream sport,” but there remains doubt over what size of audience it can capture on a week-to-week basis. Last season, average attendances for WSL games were less than 1,000 and despite growing revenue, most clubs are running at a loss.– AFP
