International developments in Women Football

More tournaments planned for World Sevens Football :

Our first tournament will take place at Estádio António Coimbra da Mota in Estoril, Portugal 21-23 May 2025.
Future tournaments are being finalized and we expect the next tournament to take place outside of Europe before the end of 2025.

Confirmed: Manchester United, Ajax, FC Bayern, Benfica. Rumoured the four teams playing the Champions League semi-finals as the losers will be free to participate and are all big brands .

 

This has not been well-received in Sweden...

Rosengård (Sweden's participant) has a Damallsvensk match against BK
Häcken the 24th of May, the day after the tournament. Rosengård has
been in contact with Häcken and the Gothenburg club refuses to re-schedule
the match. It will be up to the Swedish Football Federation to decide
the matter.

But it was other clubs that reacted the harshest, e.g.:

Adrian von Heijne (Hammarby's technical director):

– It is absolutely frivolous of course. To move a match to participate
in this type of activity. We think that the competitions that
Swedish teams participate in at club level are organized by the
Swedish Football Association and UEFA. We know that in advance. We
set the game schedule according to that, with game schedule meetings
that are held according to a very set standard. So that this appears
out of nowhere is very strange of course, says Adrian von Heijne.

– We think that it is absolutely frivolous if that type of activity in
any way affects the competitions that we participate in, especially
the matchmaking in these competitions. We see that the football
bodies, SvFF and UEFA, regulate the participation of the affiliated
teams in this type of gimmick.


https://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbla...rosengards-deltagande-i-world-sevens-football

 

In the England second division Blackburn are going to withdraw because it cost too much to run a team.
And third division, Wolves did not apply for promotion this season as their team was close to to the title and go to the second division. They have now decided to fund the team more and apply in the following season due to the backlash received.

While in France, at least four out the 12 teams are on sale according to RMC -BFM TV
The struggle for the men's team following tv rights collapse has putt he women team in a tough situation and l'equipe says up to 8 teams are potentially on sale

 

According to Fotbollskanalen.se, the Swedish Federation has now denied Rosengård's request to re-schedule the Häcken-Rosengård match. Rosengård does have an option to appeal.

 

Surely Rosengard can play with their youth teams and send their first team to Portugal ?

 

I thought Hammarby's coach exaggerated when calling the 'World Sevens Football' tournament a gimmick. Then I saw Group 1 schedule:

- Bayern Munich plays 3 matches within 23.5 hours: May 21 at 7pm, May 22 at 2:30pm, May 22 at 6:30pm
- Ajax plays 3 matches within 24.5 hours: May 21 at 7pm, May 22 at 1:30pm, May 22 at 7:30pm
- Manchester City plays 3 matches within 25.5 hours: May 21 at 5pm, May 22 at 1:30pm, May 22 at 6:30pm
- Rosengard plays 3 matches within 26.5 hours: May 21 at 5pm, May 22 at 2:30pm, May 22 at 7:30pm

Each match will be performed on a reduced pitch, with *slightly smaller* goals, and two halves of 15 minutes each.
Best part: "rolling substitutions from an unlimited squad (with 14 players selected for each match)".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Sevens_Football#Format

The tournament pays 250K USD for participants who do not qualify to the final match. It does not matter if you qualify to semifinals.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6284726/2025/04/24/world-sevens-football-man-utd-bayern/

All participating women's leagues would be over before May 21, except for the Swedish league.

Can't blame Rosengard if they choose to field bench players during their two-day stint in Portugal.
No need to qualify to semis for the same pay.

 

I'm sure Häcken would find that solution more than adequate Or to make things even more fun, Häcken could play their academy team - they are more than capable given that they compete in the Swedish 2nd tier.

 

I mean as mentioned in the above post, clubs need 14 players at the World 7 so that leaves at least 8 first team players available plus kids. So they don't need to move their game.

 

I find it quite funny that my post with results and schedule from this tourney was deleted or moved (based on copyright claim I guess?). Unless I posted it on wrong thread an forgot about it...
Well... I was under impression that international developements in woso need to be promoted far and wide if it's success is the aim.

Here is the official page of the tourney: (link) You can check the results and schedule there.

 

You posted it in the World Cup Forum.

 

Oh, dear too many open tabs I guess...

@soccernutter could you please move my World Sevens Football post from World Cup thread to Women's International thread. Thank You!

 

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...ire-danish-club-hb-koge-eye-multi-club-empire

Kansas City Current owners acquire Danish club HB Køge, eye multi-club empire

 

Women’s Soccer Set To Be Fifth Most Popular Sport In The World By 2030

"A five-year study by Nielsen Sports & PepsiCo released today indicates that women's football will become the fifth biggest sport in the world by 2030 - rivalling the likes of Formula One and tennis - with over 800 million fans worldwide"

Article in Forbes by Asif Burhan.

 

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...ransfer-plan-become-america-team-ohanian-help

Inside Chelsea's transfer plan to become 'America's team'

Emily Keogh
June 21, 2025

Chelsea has become kind of a leader in scouting, and developing young talent both domestic and foreign. American owner wants more exposure to US players and market revenue. Whatever, I hope Yohannes considers her options before going there though.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/justin...es-10-year-10-million-sponsor-deal-from-nike/

U.S. Soccer Star Catarina Macario Scores 10-Year, $10 Million Sponsor Deal From Nike

Justin Birnbaum

From the article:

with the team, as well as this year’s Women’s FA Cup.

Now, her Nike deal cements her status as one of the sport’s highest-paid players. Between that partnership and her contract with Chelsea, which Forbes estimates is worth roughly $1 million annually, Macario is set to collect at least $2 million during the 2025-26 season. That figure, which does not include pay for her appearances with the U.S. national team or her other sponsorships, would have landed her no lower than fifth on Forbes’ list of the highest-paid players at the 2023 Women’s World Cup, which was headlined by now-retired American stars Alex Morgan ($7.1 million in total estimated earnings) and Megan Rapinoe ($7 million), followed by Spain’s two-time Ballon d’Or Féminin winner Alexia Putellas ($4 million) and U.S. forward Trinity Rodman ($2.3 million).

 

1955575951020249516 is not a valid tweet id

 

Full article: https://www.deloitte.com/uk/en/abou...clubs-generate-over-150-m-for-first-time.html


* The Money League ranking for women’s football includes 15 of the highest revenue generating women’s clubs for the financial year ending in 2025 in some of the game’s leading markets. The ranking is focused on clubs competing in key football leagues (England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Brazil and Japan), for which information was available to us.

The revenue of women’s football clubs in other key markets such as Australia, Sweden and USA was not made available to us and so is not included in our analysis.

 

I gather Deloitte uses the (European)2024-25 as the 2025 annual stats--so it took 6 months to generate their data, published Jan 2026. NWSL comparative figures will be for the 2025 season just completed and probably Forbes will compile them and publish in June or so. The 2024 season stats for NWSL had both Angel City and KC at $35 Million revenue, so they set the benchmark. But Arsenal had a 44% improvement and overtook Chelsea (mostly due to using The Emirates). This season's stats will have them increasing their revenue lead as they are due to play all (or most) games at Emirates. That is what is really changing. The rest of the really big clubs don't have the ability to match that. NWSL can certainly improve their attendance figures, hopefully they will not be oblivious to this opportunity.

 

I think Barcelona will be back on top when they return to play at the fully renovated Camp Nou in the 26/27 season. A crowd of 100,000 generates revenue of around €1.5 million for each match day... and Barca can easily play 8-10 such matches there per season (duels with Liga F top rivals, national cup finals and UWCL).

 

Yes and no. True, in the past, you could indeed count the number of Barça women's matches at Camp Nou on the fingers of one hand... except that was over 2.5 years ago. The stadium was closed for renovation in June 2023 until November 2025, when part of the stands (45,000) were opened (with a 10-month delay compared to the original work schedule).
The renovation work is expected to be completed by June 2026, although due to the aforementioned delay, the first quarter of 2027 seems to be a more realistic deadline.

During the 2.5-year renovation period, Barcelona's women's team played at their small 6,000-seat Johan Cruyff Stadium, with only a few matches at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys (55,000), where the men's team moved during the renovation.
As the Olympic Stadium belongs to the city and the club has to pay rent for it, it was obvious that in order to amortise the costs, the women's team would not play there too often.

However, once the renovation is complete, I expect the women's team to return to Camp Nou and play there with similar frequency to Arsenal at the Emirates. There are couple reasons to support my assumptions: from the new changing rooms for the women's team, identical in size and equipment, built next to the men's at the ‘new’ Camp Nou, to the words of the club president himself, who often made it clear that the Cruyff stadium is too small for the women's section.