"The practice of football is completely unbecoming for women and should not be encouraged," the FA said in 1921.

If the English federation reversed its decision in 1971 and even apologized in 2008, women's football has long remained confidential and neglected.

"When I made my debut at the highest level, in 2001, at 14 years old (...) we only trained once a week and we had matches on Sundays. Everything was done by volunteers working for the love and the pleasure of this sport", remembered the ex-English international Karen Carney, in a tribune for the Guardian, last September.

"Two decades later, all the teams are professional, with players who have good salaries and are supported by substantial staff", she continued to show the giant strides made in recent years thanks to a proactive policy of AF.

"The English federation, around the 2010s, began to make teams semi-professional", for his part recalled Sylvain Jamet, of the specialized site footofeminin.com, who has lived in England for twenty years.

Boom

The 12-team championship turned professional in 2018 and enjoyed a boom with the arrival of Barclays Bank as main sponsor in 2019, followed by a new broadcast deal in 2021, which bring in some €23m per year. year in English women's football.

This new agreement "gave the media treatment that women's football needed", noted Sylvain Jamet, with "at least two or three matches which are exposed each day", while the federation puts all the matches online for free on its application.

The written press has also jumped on the bandwagon.

Women's Euro 2022 in England Vincent LEFAI AFP

"Three years ago, no national newspaper came to do the league matches. Whereas at Arsenal or Chelsea, now, every time the Times, the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the BBC, the Telegraph are there" , Jamet noted.

The first beneficiaries of this transformation are obviously the players.

"I joined Arsenal five years ago and at that time the league was not yet very professional. The progress made, especially last year, was very important," confirmed to AFP Netherlands star striker Vivianne Miedema in February.

"We have two assistants, a mental coach (...) two physiotherapists, a masseur, a doctor. The staffs are a little larger (than in France) and then, in terms of infrastructure, we are in a center huge. We have three gyms, a covered synthetic pitch. It's England, what!" Said the Frenchwoman Kenza Dali, who passed through West Ham and Everton.

Still modest budgets

Like their male counterparts, English clubs now attract the biggest stars, Pernille Harder and Sam Kerr playing for example at Chelsea, three outgoing champions.

Even if the investment remains minimal for the big clubs – Chelsea has a budget of around 7 million euros, and Manchester City or Arsenal less than that – women's football is an image vector in its own right.

When Chelsea changed hands in the spring, takeover candidates had to pledge continued investment in the women's team, and when Liverpool secured their return to the top flight in April, Jürgen Klopp praised them, even tackling his direction.

"Liverpool weren't known in recent years for looking after or treating their women fantastically well. They didn't go down to the Championship (D2) for no reason. must make sure to take advantage of this situation”, he had slipped in a press conference.

Chelsea striker Sam Kerr shoots and scores against Manchester City, at the Cherry Red Records Stadium in Wimbledon, south London on March 5, 2022 JUSTIN TALLIS AFP/Archives

More and more often, Premier League stadiums are opening up to women's matches.

Newcastle, however in D4, brought more than 22,000 spectators to Saint-James' Park last May.

With an opening match of the Euro at Old Trafford and a final at Wembley, which they have already almost filled in a friendly against Germany, in November 2019, the Lionesses hope to ride this wave to win a first title. after three consecutive failures in the semi-finals of major competitions.

© 2022 AFP