Xero

What does it mean to dream bigger for women’s football?

Carrie Dunn fields a discussion with business and sports leaders on the biggest issues facing the sport

Rising numbers

Grassroots growth

Spectator experience

Broadcast

Diversity

Salaries

When Leah Williamson lifted the UEFA Women’s EURO trophy at Wembley in 2022, it was the culmination of a decades-long dream – finally, England had brought football ‘home’. The Lionesses’ win was a great triumph, but when it comes to women’s football there’s so much more potential – so many more victories to come, and so many more ambitions to fulfil. That’s why Xero is encouraging everyone from small business owners to future Lionesses to dream bigger ahead of next summer’s UEFA Women’s EUROs.

The Lionesses celebrate a Lucy Bronze goal against Sweden in the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 semi-final on their way to winning the tournament

Rising numbers

The Lionesses were quick to call for more girls to get the opportunity to play football in school – and the numbers are certainly rising. In the three months following their UEFA Women’s EURO win, there was a 196 per cent increase in women’s and girls’ football session bookings through the England Football ‘Find Football’ tool. The FA wants 90 per cent of all schools to offer equal access to football for girls as an extracurricular activity by next year. But even before EURO glory, we have seen a steady increase. Between October 2021 and October 2022, there was a 17 per cent rise in affiliated female players across all levels of the game, a 30 per cent increase in registered female football teams, and a 15 per cent increase in female youth teams for girls aged between 5-18 years old. Similarly, the number of female coaches working in teams affiliated to The FA rose by 75 per cent across that same period.

By next year, the FA’s target is for 55 per cent of registered coaches in the women’s and girls’ game to be female.

It’s a big challenge. Baroness Sue Campbell, The FA’s former director of women’s football, says that the Lionesses’ European title “turbocharged” demand for the game at grassroots level.

“We need more volunteers in clubs to help run the women’s and girls’ side of things,” she says. “Facilities are really stretched, so there’s still a lot to do.

Baroness Sue Campbell

The FA’s former director of women’s football

“But we’ve also seen a lot more people wanting to coach, more people wanting to referee. We’ve seen a lot more girls participating, and older women who were told at school they couldn’t play football are now suddenly thinking: ‘Maybe I can!’” She adds: “The most important thing for me is that any child or older person that comes to play the game has fun, enjoys it and goes away with the love of kicking the ball – because if they do that, they’ll come back. That's what we want.”

Grassroots growth

With more and more girls and women interested in the game, they need places to play. That’s why The FA currently has a target for the majority of grassroots clubs to have teams for women and girls by 2024, and initiatives are springing up around the country so that female players have the opportunity to try football out in a welcoming and inspiring environment.

With more than 2.5 million registered players, football is now the top participation sport for women and girls in England

Xero’s partnership with The FA is a key part of ensuring that football clubs from grassroots upwards are welcoming girls and women. Xero, the online accounting software perfect for small businesses, offers support and education to make sure that everyone has the skills they need to run a football club efficiently and effectively. Sam Daniels, Xero’s head of brand and campaign marketing UK, says it’s crucial to ensure that the right support is available to clubs at all levels of the game:

"Grassroots football is closely tied to small businesses and relies heavily on volunteers. Helping these clubs become financially sustainable is crucial for girls and women playing, and the football club as a whole,” he says.

Sam Daniels

Head of brand and campaign marketing, Xero

“While financial sustainability is often discussed for larger clubs, it is just as important for grassroots clubs. Success breeds success and investing in women’s football is vital for its growth. Through our software and accountancy partners we aim to support clubs by simplifying their financial management, helping them improve cash flow and long-term viability."

Cheering crowds

At the elite end of the game, there are also big changes happening. Nearly two billion people watched the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. And the big clubs are also seeing increased attendances in a very short space of time: the 2021-22 UEFA Women’s Champions League had a total of 181,000 fans at its four quarter-finals, 180,000 at its two semi-finals, and 32,000 at the final. Just one season later, that had risen to 201,000 at the quarter-finals, 182,000 at the semi-finals, and 33,000 at the final.

In fact, during the 2022 calendar year, the three highest attendances in European football were at women’s football matches:

However, with women’s club teams often playing at much smaller grounds – which aren’t necessarily as attractive for a day out – those high figures won’t be happening every weekend just yet.

Maggie Murphy

Former CEO of Lewes FC

Maggie Murphy is the former chief executive officer of Lewes FC, the football club that pays male and female players equal money for equal work. One of their partners is Xero, which shares their mission to help women and girls thrive in football, whether that is on or off the pitch. Murphy is proud that under her, the club diversified its audience and welcomed people who had never been through a turnstile in their lives. One of the club's biggest achievements was to make a football match feel like a special occasion.

“One of the things that marks Lewes out compared to some other women’s teams is the fact that they play in their own ground, which means they own and control how the matchday runs: security, volunteers greeting fans on arrival, right through to the food and drink that is served, which includes a range of kombuchas, loaded fries with Asian mayo and seaweed! “It’s really important that people come and have a great day. They come early, they leave late. They enjoy the day, they can bring friends and chat, they can bring their kids, strolling around in a safe environment. Making sure that it’s a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere and fun is really important.”

Lewes FC prides itself on offering spectators a fun day out

Preeti Shetty, Brentford director and chief executive of Upshot says she would like to see top clubs devote more resources to promoting their women’s team – making it easier for a casual fan to find out when matches are on. “Have a dedicated women's football department,” she implores. “Offer women’s football season tickets. Have new and different sponsors specifically for the women’s team. Have a digital community – everybody sees things on social. Get more games on TV. Get the pricing right.” And she agrees with Maggie Murphy – women’s football is a unique product that attracts people who might never have considered going to a match before.

“I’ve taken loads of people to women’s games, friends of mine that would never have gone to men’s games. They think they don’t like football. But women’s sport promotes all these wonderful principles: these messages of positivity and fair play and inclusiveness and healthy competition. You have that at the core of the sport, of the game, of the day, of the event. I feel like that’s making it really attractive and interesting for people who underestimated it before.”

Preeti Shetty

Brentford director and chief executive of Upshot

ON THE BOX

For the first time, broadcast rights for the Women’s Super League have been sold separately to the men’s competitions. Television is proving a huge income source for the women’s game across Europe: just two years ago, the combined revenue for women’s clubs was 116 million euros, with 35 million of that coming from the media. Governing bodies are expecting a fivefold increase on those figures in the next decade – at the very minimum. And FIFA president Gianni Infantino publicly called on broadcasters to invest in showing the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup™, telling the World Trade Organization that he would not countenance underselling the rights for the tournament, and that bids of less than £8 million were “simply not acceptable”. Preeti Shetty thinks it’s a turning point for the game. “This is a whole new ballgame, literally. We need to think about how this is attractive to sponsors that wouldn’t sponsor football otherwise, how is this attractive to TV audiences that are looking for something different? We have to look at every single benefit and say, ‘How can we supercharge this element? How can we make this interesting – not just to women’s football fans, not just a football crowd, to lots of different kinds of people?’ “It’s not just TV. It’s unbundling other revenue streams and really looking at that value proposition, which is very different to men’s football. It’s different because of the audience, the values, the types of stories we have, the societal impact.”

The current value of the Women’s Super League three-year TV deal with BBC and Sky that started in 2020-21

£8m

“There are so many socially conscious brands out there at the moment. Women’s football has a lot of opportunities if we start to pick it apart and say, ‘actually, this is its own thing, and this is what it could be for you, and these are the stories we can tell and here are the people you can follow’. It’s about us starting to understand and articulate the ability of women’s football to generate substantial TV audiences, to deliver value to sponsors in a way that they haven’t seen before. “It’s starting to happen and I think it could be a bit of a snowball effect: we are seeing more of this and we are seeing more people coming and we are putting it on TV and – you know what? – people are watching.”

Diversity and innovation

In such an innovative sport packed full of great role models, perhaps it’s a little surprising that it’s taken so long for some big discussions to be had. For example, it’s only now really being acknowledged that women have different requirements when it comes to their football boots; putting female players in boots designed for men is not going to allow them to perform at their optimum ability. Laura Youngson, Xero customer and creator of female-specific boot brand IDA Sports, says that creating change is never going to be easy – but trailblazers need to stick to their principles.

“Just listen to the consumers,” she says. “Listen to the players who are saying: ‘Oh, I don’t get foot pain any more,’ or: ‘You’ve helped me get back to play.’ Having that validation is so much more important than those who perhaps can’t see the innovation and what the future looks like.”

Laura Youngson

CEO at IDA Sports

And that future is an exciting one in women’s football, where there are so many opportunities for innovation. “Think about businesses in football, because it’s a massively growing industry and it’s going to keep growing. Start with ‘How can I make this experience better for the people that consume this?’ Whether it’s a service or product, that's 100 per cent where you should be focusing your energy.” And as women’s football continues to strive for change and reach new heights, it’s important that the game doesn’t get caught in the same problems that other sports have faced, and that it reflects society right up to its governance level. “I'm one of only 10 women on any Premier League board,” says Preeti Shetty. “I'm the only South Asian woman on a Premier League board. These are not stats that we should be cheering over, and I think the women’s game naturally thinks about that more – we are actively trying to do it differently in the women’s game. “The only way to do that is to have that visibility and try to make it much more representative of the communities that we want to serve. Leave the doors open and the ladders down, and really make this a game for everybody.”

Earning pounds and pence for the stars of the show

With so much investment going into the women’s game, it’s easy to think that all the issues around finance are solved – but compare the salaries of a top female player and her male equivalent, and then the average earnings of a female player, and you can see that there’s still some way to go. “The wage disparity is ridiculous,” says Preeti Shetty. “We’re seeing the highest-paid women earning 1 per cent as much as their male counterparts. That’s still a lot of money for most normal people. “But the average salary in the women’s game is around £30,000. That’s actually not great money, and we’re expecting them to not just live on this but also then perform every day to the highest quality. “We’re not putting the women in a position to generate that support, that sponsorship, that viewership as easily as we do the men. Give them the opportunity to build all of these things, pay them fairly for that, and then we start to close that gap.”

The trickle-down effect of financial investment and higher salaries at the top end of the game can be difficult for clubs lower down the pyramid to handle. At grassroots level, Xero’s advice is on offer to support volunteers running their local clubs – but even in the professional game there are still some challenges. “One of the hardest things of my job is having to say goodbye to players who I love and respect and enjoy watching play after single-year contracts, because of the lack of security that there still is in women’s football,” says Maggie Murphy. “It’s painful for them. It’s painful for us and is one of the things that I wish I could change fastest and soonest about the game: move away from one-year contracts and have the stability of three-year planning. That would be a game changer, not just for players but also for staff and for clubs that are just trying to chart out a longer-term development for the game and not in it just for the short term.” Having a financially sustainable long-term plan for the game, from grassroots upwards, is crucial if girls and women are to follow their footballing dreams.

“We want girls to dream bigger to become the Lionesses of the future,” says Coldicutt. “Football is so central to any community. Even in a small town, there could be 20 or 30 teams playing for a club. There’s a whole small business ecosystem around any football club. It’s exciting and brings the community together. It’s consistent with how we want to drive Xero globally – our purpose is to make life better for small businesses, their advisors and their communities around the world.”

Make your business dreams a reality with Xero, small business accounting software and proud official partner of FIFA Women’s Football, England Football, England Senior Women’s Team, Lewes FC and Women in Football

Carrie Dunn is the author of The Reign of the Lionesses: How European Glory Changed Women’s Football in England.

Telegraph Media Group Designer: Victoria Griffiths, Picture Editor: Alex Kelly, Commissioning Editor: Jim Bruce-Ball, Words: Carrie Dunn, Sub Editor: Tim Cumming, Project Manager: Fanni Szentivanyi, Web Editor: Ross Thomas, Picture Credits: Getty, Shutterstock

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for Barcelona v Real Madrid in the quarter-final of the UEFA Women's Champions League

for Barcelona against Wolfsburg in the semi-final first leg of the UEFA Women's Champions League

for England v Germany in the UEFA Women's EURO final