On Saturday, there is a premiere in the Women's Super League (WSL).

Since the league started in 2011, interest has steadily increased - but perhaps the interest ahead of this particular season is greater than ever.

- You can now feel after this summer's EC finals that the interest and the conditions are being turned up another level, says Arsenal's coach Jonas Eidevall.

Eidevall left Rosengård for Arsenal last year and has followed how pre-season ticket sales have increased.

- We played Tottenham last spring at the Emirates and I think we had around 13,000-15,000 spectators.

Now that we are going to play them here in September, we have already sold over 30,000 tickets.

Big changes in recent years

At the time of writing, over 40,000 tickets have been sold for the home match against Tottenham in the third round.

Arsenal's Stina Blackstenius, who is one of a total of ten Swedes in the WSL, is happy about the development.

- It is unbelievable.

We've been following the ticket sales and seen that they've been increasing all the time, and there's even quite a bit of time left until the game is to be played.

Super fun for us as players to feel that there is interest, she says.

A lot has happened in English women's football in recent years.

In 2018, the WSL was professionalised, several of the big clubs have increased their investment in their women's teams and before the last season a new television agreement was concluded with the BBC and Sky Sports worth over SEK 100 million a year.

Magdalena Eriksson: "England is a role model"

Magdalena Eriksson, who has played in Chelsea since 2017, thinks that England has been at the forefront of development when it comes to making women's football visible.

- I absolutely think that England is a model for how they have marketed their league, how they have worked to get a proper TV deal that actually generates money that has also generated a lot for us players, and we feel that our profiles are being raised a lot due to Sky stepping in and showing the matches.

We are seen in a completely different way.

I think England have done so much right there.

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