Women’s Football

In any sport or indeed any industry, role models and progressive organisations set higher standards, raise expectations and inspire others around them to do the same. This has always been true of football as it has developed, but it is even more important specifically in the context of the women’s game. After decades in the dark, it is now the biggest growth opportunity in global football, increasing in terms of participation, professionalisation and commercial value. In the dedicated section of this edition, we share four examples of best practice from the cutting edge of women’s football development. Firstly, we speak to the woman overseeing the development of the female game at FIFA, Sarai Bareman, about the FIFA Benchmarking Report: Women’s Football, a landmark publication that explains the landscape and its huge potential. We then take a tour of women’s club football in three confederations, looking at the pioneering work of France’s Olympique Lyonnais, the success of the Portland Thorns in the USA’s Pacific Northwest, and the evolution of CONMEBOL’s Libertadores Femenina in South America.