More women's games need to be staged in Premier League stadiums. The interest is there.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s recent underwhelming comments about Manchester United’s women team to Bloomberg were disappointing and out of keeping with interest in the side. When Old Trafford staged its first ever women’s Manchester Derby last season, 43,615 turned up. Welcome to Womanchester.
The interest is there. It’s great news that Aston Villa Women today announced that all 11 of their WSL fixtures will be at Villa Park, up from last season’s five. Villa’s head of women’s football, Lee Billiard, told the club’s website that Villa Park is “a commercially viable Venus for us” and spoke of the “special match-day experience”. Nottingham Forest Women will also play their home games at the City Ground. That has to be an added attraction to players considering their next club.
If you build up the attraction, they will come, for players and supporters. Apologies for mangling the best line from “Field of Dreams” but it seems appropriate when reflecting on the women’s game. Fixtures are released for the Barclays Women’s Super League shortly, and much interest will focus on how the new-look competition does. Last season, gates rose 43%. The interest is there and can be enhanced further.
The WSL and Women’s Championship have a dynamic chief executive in Nikki Doucet, but old attitudes and current issues remain to be overcome, judging by the tone of Ratcliffe’s comments. Clubs talk about sustainable growth for their women’s teams, not rushing to the main stadium if they fear demand is not fully there, and certainly at least one eminent men’s manager warned internally about over-use of the pitch. But for the WSL to fly it needs co-owners like Ratcliffe to be more committed and, at some point, the Premier League rule-book to include a regulation that clubs’ women teams play at the main stadium.
This would initially be expensive in staffing and stewarding as most grounds would be far from full. But the interest is there and can be increased. Parents talk of taking offspring to WSL games because there is less simulation and dissent than during men’s matches. The popular and successful Lionesses have also enhanced interest.