Highest attendance records this year for WNT's (playing at home only) England ------- 87 192 (EURO host) Morocco ------ 45 562 (AWCON host) Sweden ------- 33 218 Colombia ----- 28 000 Australia ------ 26 997 Germany ----- 26 835 Denmark ----- 21 542 Canada ------- 20 601 Mexico -------- 20 522 (CONCACAF Cup host) USA ----------- 18 869 Netherlands - 17 000 Vietnam ------ 16 100 Nepal --------- 15 730 N.Ireland ----- 15 348 Norway ------- 12 657 France -------- 12 050 China --------- 11 863 Spain --------- 11 209 Scotland ----- 10 708 Switzerland - 10 022 Ireland --------- 6 952 Portugal ------- 5 500 Italy ------------- 5 000 Chile ----------- 5 000 Japan ---------- 4 011 Finland -------- 3 000 Poland --------- 2 000 Austria --------- 1 750 Fiji -------------- 1 591 (OFC Cup host) Korea Rep. --- N/A Argentina ----- N/A New Zealand -- 0 home matches in 2022 Brazil ------------ 0 home matches in 2022 (AFC Cup in India had no fans allowed in the stands) (bold - new records) Average attendance at matches played this year for countries listed above is at best 1/2 to 1/3 of their highest ever recorded (handful of countries) and more often is 1/4 or even 1/5 for many of the rest. 12 065 average attendance at EURO's (without host team matches) is on the high end for many countries in women's football. This list is by no means complete (nor 100% accurate) but I think it gives perspective of how far women's football is still trailing behind men's in terms of popularity.
All they really need to do is bring back the preliminary round to significantly limit the number of blowout results and also avoid all of that Nations League BS. No clue yet on when the qualifying draw will take place? The qualifiers are supposed to start in March-April 2023 which is not that far away.
They can't do the draw before Jan 23. I think they will move to the Nations League qualifying system unless many countries oppose the move. They have tested it for many seasons now at u17/19 level and there have been no problems.
New format now disclosed. Among the new things, the Nations League will be the Olympics qualifiers. The European Qualifiers start in spring 2024, following the conclusion of the UEFA Nations League, and are composed of a league stage and final tournament play-offs. Direct qualification for UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 The final European Qualifiers league ranking will reward the eight top teams in League A with direct qualification for UEFA Women’s EURO 2025. If the team of the host association have not qualified automatically, they will be guaranteed a slot. In the case of multiple hosts, this guarantee will cover a maximum of two teams.
Looks promising, I think I like it. Will be many more even matches for sure and more teams having something to play for all the way. Good that they baked the Olympic qualifiers into it as well.
Excellent news. Not only will every match be meaningful, for both EURO and WC qualifiers, but great to hear the Olympic qualification is being taken out of the WC itself. Obviously some details to still be determined, such as what happens if the EURO host is in the top 8 of League A already, or exactly how the playoffs will differ in WC qualifying based on slot availability, but this looks very good.
Yeah, I think they reached a good format. Although it means teams will play the same teams very often from now on. There will be less variety in oppositions.
Wasn't the new format supposed to be announced AFTER the Euro host(s) is determined so either in December orafter the next year? Also, from what I understood, this means no competitive games in women's football until September 2023 at the earlier and no qualifiers until spring 2024. It sucks, I was hoping for some spring games in March and April 2023.
The next competitive games will take place 18-26 September 2022 and should be the Nations League Matchday 1. The April and June/July 23 dates are earmarked for friendlies.
Some of those numbers are pretty disappointing considering the popularity of football in their respective countries. The Philippines where football is not considered that popular had a record(for PWNT) 8,257 fans watching the PWNT in the AFF Championship earlier this year which is better than those from Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Chile, Poland, Japan, etc.
Women's football in Poland isn't popular at all. Men's football is most popular and most watched sport in the country but women's football in terms of popularity is behind women's: atheltics, volleyball, tennis, basketball, rowing and even boxing. That's why the Polish Football Association (PZPN) wants to organize the EURO in Poland - to then use it as a springboard to popularize the discpline.
Sounds like 51 nations will participate. So who's out? Liechtenstein? Gibraltar? Obviously San Marino
I see. I meant football in general is a popular sport in most of those countries. BTW, I didn't know that so many women's sports in Poland have more fans than football. It is a pretty good list. There is a variety of sports disciplines there. How about gymnastics and fencing? I thought the former was quite a popular spectator sport in Eastern Europe for women and I seem to remember Poland having quite a few fencing champions in the past.
I think the Swedish numbers look fine, there are over 60% of our all-time attendance records (for football/soccer at least) and about 70% of the men's best for 2022.
I am not surprised Sweden WNT is in the top 3 after all of the years of success they have in World and European competitions in the past.
51 countries competed in the World Cup qualifiers. Andorra, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein and San Marino were the UEFA teams that not participated.
Gibraltar and Liechtenstein played their first international game in women's football last year, Andorra has been around since 2014 but San Marino doesn't have a women's national team. Still, I doubt any of them have the depth and preparation to participate in qualifiers just yet.
And also in all fairness I don't think many of us want them to participate given the numerous blowbacks that about 10-15 national teams across Europe suffer sometimes repeatedly in qualifiers (Macedonia, Latvia, Georgia, Faroe Islands, Armenia, Estonia. Moldova etc).
I think it is fine, they would play winnable games in League C instead of 10-0 defeats in the old format.
I highly doubt they would be winnable games, those teams I named are super new and have little to no experience at the national team level.