This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on August 8, 2022 - August 14, 2022

For the hosts, for women’s football and for equality, it could hardly have gone better. The Women’s Euro 2022 championship, won by England, was played before packed crowds, record TV audiences, and is being hailed as “a watershed” for both the sport and the women’s rights movement. Clearly, the goalposts have shifted.

It was great for business and the football was pretty good, too. In England, sponsors are rushing to make unknown players overnight millionaires, while male chauvinists are admitting that women can actually play the game. Some are even jesting that the Lionesses’ coach, Sarina Wiegman, should take over the men’s team!

But for it to make a global impact, two questions remain: Will the interest last and will it spread? If both answers are in the affirmative, the potential is truly off the charts. According to AC Nielsen, football already has more followers than the two biggest religions combined. Give the “other half” of humanity the same opportunities, and you have a whole new industry. Not to mention spillover benefits for the men’s game.

But before we get carried away, this was just Europe, and Western Europe at that, Finland being the easternmost nation among the 16 finalists. Eastern Europe lags behind, as do vast swathes of Asia. Exceptions are Japan, who were world champions in 2011, and China, whose Steel Roses were runners-up in 1999. Closer to home, Vietnam qualified for the finals (in Australia and New Zealand next year) for the first time.

Alas in Malaysia, it’s a very different story. The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) didn’t think it even worth sending a women’s team to the SEA Games to be “cannon fodder”, while “working conditions” for women players have been described as “unacceptable” by Professional Footballers Association of Malaysia (PFAM) CEO Izham Ismail. He added in a tweet: “No contract, salary and respect. They deserve better. Women’s football deserves better.”

As England’s stars were about to become rich after their win over Germany, Kuala Lumpur’s futsal players were being kicked out of their homestay because the rent wasn’t paid. When salaries didn’t come in either, a boycott led to a 26-0 defeat.

For religious and/or cultural reasons, women’s football is a long way from being universal. But the basic desire to kick a ball is not confined to males: Any girl anywhere who caught a glimpse of the spectacle at Wembley would surely have been inspired. And it’s getting better.

Dutch winger Lieke Martens was one of many to say: “You notice it in every position. Defenders get better, midfielders turn away very easily and place passes over 40 metres. Goalkeepers say shots are getting harder.” Yet Fifpro general secretary Jonas Baer-Hoffmann claims: “We’re only scratching the surface of how good the women’s game can be. There is still a huge amount of untapped potential by many players that is not being fulfilled.”

Playing concurrently, the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations in Morocco, won by South Africa, also got positive reviews. The Equalizer summed it up: “Over two weeks, there was quality football on display, records were broken, legacies were tainted, underdogs rose to the occasion and the world truly experienced the rippling growth of women’s football in Africa.”

But it’s England that will be the driving force now as it seeks to close the gap with world champions, the United States. It’s rare for the two nations to be rivals as their men play different sports, but having the two most influential countries in the English-speaking world going toe-to-toe will surely take the sport to new heights.

This tournament’s metrics are already impressive enough to turn the most cynical of commercial heads. Not only was the 87,192 final crowd a record for both men’s and women’s Euro finals, the overall attendance of 574,875 smashed the previous best of 240,055 for women. The TV audience for the final peaked at 23.3 million across all BBC platforms and was the most watched programme of the year in the UK.

“There’s nothing but upside here,” said sponsorship and broadcast consultant Tim Crow. “You’ve got a unique set of circumstances and the numbers speak for themselves.” 

David Olusegun, CEO of Creative Control Ventures, told the MailOnline: “The players will now have the platform to make significant earnings off the back of the competition as they have so heroically captured the hearts and minds of the nation.” He added that the big names could pick up as much as £4 million (RM22 million) a year.

If companies needed any more persuasion to get involved, they only had to listen to the chat and feel the vibe. It took over news channels, and dominated talk shows and bar room conversations. 

“Everyone is talking about women’s football,” said Jenny Mitton of the M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment agency. “There’s been a big cultural shift.” England star Leah Williamson went further, saying: “It’s given the women’s game legitimacy and could change society.”

Maintaining the momentum will be crucial but an Ipsos poll reported that 44% of the British public say watching the Euros has made them more interested in the women’s game. It also shows what free-to-air television can do, but there’s still a long way to go.

Although Uefa doubled the prize money, the €16 million (RM73 million) total was only €6 million more than Italy picked up as winners of the men’s Euros, the budget for which was €331 million. As for Fifa, its 2019 report claimed that women’s football development is one of its “top priorities”, yet in 2020, it spent a beyond derisory 2% of what it allocated to “development and education”.

Then there are salaries. The top women’s earner is Chelsea’s Australian striker Sam Kerr, who’s believed to be on £400,000 a year. But the average in the Women’s Super League is £30,000; the average in the men’s English Premier League is £60,000 a week. Overall, Deloitte says that European football generated €28.9 billion in 2019, almost entirely from the men’s game.

As for the wider impact, a pre-tournament report predicted the nine host cities would see an economic boost of £54 million. And talking of spread, television audiences were expected to reach 250 million people in 195 territories. Uefa’s chief of women’s football Nadine Kessler was always confident the impact wouldn’t stop with the final whistle or at the European border. “The Uefa Women’s Euro 2022,” she said, “has a unique chance to be a catalyst for change locally, nationally, across Europe and beyond.

“The tournament and our collective ambition will positively impact local economies and tourism, people and communities and the global visibility of the women’s game, while providing valuable inspiration for the future.”

Caution may be advised here, especially as we’ve heard the words “just the beginning” many times. How many false starts have there been? Not just in women’s sport but with minor sports hoping to become major ones through either a star player or memorable moment.

Nicol David didn’t make Malaysia a squash powerhouse while not even Tiger Woods could sell golf to African Americans. Jonny Wilkinson’s famous World Cup-winning drop goal didn’t turn England into a rugby nation. That said, the women’s game in England should now take off, but in the rest of the world, progress will be more uneven.

Bob Holmes is a long-time sportswriter specialising in football

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