Latest news with #AlexiaPutellas
Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
- Sport
- Al Jazeera
Spain's Bonmati hospitalised with meningitis ahead of Euro 2025
Spain midfielder Aitana Bonmati, the two-time Ballon d'Or holder, has been hospitalised with viral meningitis less than a week before the Women's European football championship begins. Spain coach Montse Tome said late on Friday that her star player had felt ill and was taken to a hospital in Madrid where she tested positive for meningitis. Spain's team is set to travel to Switzerland on Sunday for the tournament. Its first game is against Portugal on Thursday in Bern. It will also face Belgium and Italy in Group B at Euro 2025. 'Aitana is a very important player for us and we will wait for her,' Tome said after Bonmati missed Friday's friendly against Japan in the Spanish capital when Spain beat the visitors 3-1. Tome said that Bonmati started feeling bad with a fever during practice early on Friday. 'She has authorised me to say that she has viral meningitis,' Tome said. 'The word is scary, but the doctor tells me that she is under control. She will remain in the hospital and we don't know for how long.' The 27-year-old Bonmati has won the top individual award for women for the past two years. The Barcelona player was key in Spain winning the 2023 Women's World Cup. Bonmati's vision, dribbling skills, passing and goals have also been vital to Barcelona reaching five consecutive Champions League finals, with the Catalan club winning three titles. Her absence would put more pressure on Alexia Putellas, herself a two-time Ballon d'Or winner, and fellow Barcelona midfielder Patricia Guijarro, to lead Spain. Against Japan, Tome started 18-year-old Vicky Lopez in place of Bonmati. Three years ago, Putellas tore her ACL three days before starting the 2022 European Championship. Spain was eliminated in the quarterfinals without its then-top player. Spain should still be favoured in its opener against Portugal, a team it beat twice in April – including a 7-1 home victory – in the Nations League.
The Guardian
18 hours ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
Alexia Putellas: ‘The cruciate, the meniscus: you've closed that cycle. Done. I felt free'
'It wasn't my knee that hurt, it was my soul,' the Queen says, but now she is back. There is a look in Alexia Putellas's eye, a light. 'You know that feeling, that sense of security when it's like you're capable of anything?' the double Ballon d'Or winner says, leaning forward on a sofa at Spain's Las Rozas HQ. 'At that moment, I felt it. And now I've got that feeling once again. I'm happy; the desire for these Euros is huge. I can't wait to start, to go and give my everything.' And Alexia Putellas's everything is everything. These are her third Euros – she scored a 94th-minute winner against England on competitive debut in 2013, aged 19, although she does not remember if she was given the goal – an indicator of how far she has come. Not only since 2013 but since the last time too. Switzerland stands as a kind of redemption, a reclaiming of her place after an English summer, and so much more, was taken from her by a torn cruciate suffered at Bisham Abbey a day before Euro 22 began. It was, she says, an hostia, the worst of blows. 'I had felt really good, and then … I knew the moment it happened. I heard a sound like a branch breaking. 'No, not now.' You never expect it, but at that moment. It's the day before.' Putellas had arrived as the world's best player, the tournament's greatest icon, but when the selección kicked off in Milton Keynes she sat by the touchline in a baseball cap and Virginia Torrecilla's shirt, crutches at her side. Two hundred and ninety-nine days would pass until she played again. Two years passed, two more operations – a World Cup, two league titles and a Champions League, attention and affection turned elsewhere – before Putellas was Putellas again, not just physically but emotionally. 'People don't know that with injuries you train more than when you're healthy but you don't get the reward of playing,' she says. 'I'm competitive and you set yourself challenges: 'When can I start walking?' 'A month.' 'OK, in three weeks, I'll be there.' But at first there's nothing. Just pain. And I felt a lot of pain. I couldn't sleep. I didn't have any appetite. It was a vicious circle. To even move, you have to …' Putellas hauls her leg on to the sofa, a demonstration of the dead weight. 'Post-op I had a very bad time,' she says, and it is not as if what followed was much easier either. 'You go from playing at a stratospheric level to not being able to walk, not knowing how, learning aged 27, 28. 'You get to the gym, which is at least your habitat. Then the pitch, where you think you're progressing but frustration comes because your last memory playing was like that and now you can't play a pass, can't turn, can't control. There are times you wonder [if you ever will].' 'They warn you that the day you get the medical all-clear, play again, it's still not done: you need time, adaptation, competition. Don't think you'll be the same; that's just not real. You still have three, six months. You have to try to give yourself that margin, control your emotions. And right in the middle of that period is a World Cup.' Putellas returned in late April 2023, after 10 months out. But given the final minute of the Champions League final, reward after her rehabilitation, she arrived at the World Cup having made six appearances, all as a substitute, and those warnings are not always easy to hear. 'You don't go thinking: 'I'm in that three-to-six month period'; you go thinking: 'I'll give my best.' 'Two years later, I see it: my level is completely different, even if at the time you don't realise. You're not the same physically as before. There are things going on, too. I arrived feeling confident; then came [defeat to] Japan and I was the head cut.' Did she feel singled out? 'No, not singled out. I understand that if things aren't working the coach has to change someone and it was me, and that's that.' That wasn't that, however. Putellas played an hour in the semi-final and a minute in the final. Spain's historic win, secured by a squad including only three of 15 players who had pulled out demanding improvements, was overshadowed by the Spain federation's president Luis Rubiales's unsolicited kiss of Jenni Hermoso. Again, Putellas took the lead, which was not to say it was welcome, rather that responsibility demanded it. 'I wish it hadn't happened,' she says. 'You try to tell yourself: 'It's great, we've just won the World Cup,' but you see the press, people, everything, and the focus isn't there. It was a shit situation, unpleasant, a burden.' In November Putellas underwent another operation, this time on her meniscus, a common consequence of cruciate tears. She missed 21 matches through to March, the doubts increasing, people saying her moment had passed, that she wouldn't ever be the same. 'I'm not going to lie: it gets to you,' she says. 'There are those close to you going through it, suffering, thinking you won't make it. I understand because the reality is there are cases where players don't get back, and it's not personal. [But] people don't know.' In part that goes with being Putellas: the world's best player, a footballer of huge symbolic significance, subjected to an exposure unimaginable before. A leader in the fight for professionalisation. A Ballon d'Or winner too, The Queen. 'It's been hard for me to come to understand that,' she says. 'I see football collectively, everybody equal. At first, it was difficult to manage the attention. I was very introverted. And when the individual awards started arriving it was like: 'I don't understand this'. With time, I came to feel: 'Well, they've put you there, fate wanted you there: use it.' A lot of what I did wasn't for me, but to make the game grow. 'Take the Prime documentary: I didn't want to do it. I said no four times. I watch a lot of sports documentaries and one day I was looking for one about a sportswoman. I only found Carolina Marín, the badminton player. That was the click. And I said: 'Do it'.' Did you like it? Putellas smiles. 'They might kill me for this, but I haven't seen it. I mean, I saw it, but before it was finished. I know how I am. I don't have the ego to watch myself. Sign up to Moving the Goalposts No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women's football after newsletter promotion 'It's not that I'm saying I'm nothing, but there have been many times I've felt like wearing No 11, being Alexia, is different and it [shouldn't be]. Starting with the management of this injury, the management of expectation, the management of the pressure and everything. But for better or worse, I'm Alexia. 'Now I handle that better. I don't focus on the [eulogies] or those who want to kill me. A friend said: 'I don't know how you do it but they either love you or hate you.' I try not to focus on either.' Well, most of the time, motivation found in those who doubted she would return. 'To tell the truth, that was also fuel, petrol. A challenge,' Putellas says. 'Like: 'You'll see.'' Oh, they see. Putellas arrives at the Euros as one of the continent's outstanding players, scorer of 22 goals last season and provider of 17 assists, directly involved in a goal (score, assist) every 44 minutes for Barcelona. Voted player of the season in Liga F, she has created more chances than anyone in Europe's top five leagues. AS summed it up: 'The best Alexia is back, or maybe even better.' When she returned to a struggling Spain side in February, six months later, she led a hammering of Portugal, a glorious roulette drawing a standing ovation from Vigo's Balaídos stadium. Defeat to Arsenal in the Champions League final hurt – it still does – but en route she had scored or assisted against every European opponent. It has been coming a year since the previous season's final, a refound consistency positioning her as a Ballon d'Or candidate again at 31. 'There's a moment I feel liberated and that's Bilbao,' she says. With five minutes remaining in the 2024 Champions League final against Lyon, she was sent on to protect a one-goal lead; instead she scored the goal that secured the title. Barcelona were European champions again and she was bowing before fans, 697 days after her cruciate tore. 'Physically you can be good, but if mentally you're not there, you're tense, you can't control yourself as you did. It's not that I came off the pitch that day thinking: 'I can do it,' so much as: 'That's it,' 'time's come.' The cruciate, the meniscus, the whole injury: you've closed that cycle. Done. I felt free. And from there, I've felt super good.' So here she is, 12 years on from her first Euros, three from what should have been her last, a legacy already left and more to leave. She gestures towards the end of the corridor, to the dressing room. Their dressing room now, their own place. Small details, she says, but ones that matter. 'I remember the first time [in 2013] perfectly. There's a goal that hit my pony tail and we won 3-2,' Putellas recalls. 'I picture myself as a girl, I hardly knew where I was. Everything has grown. I've developed as a woman too. That day, I would never have imagined how things are now, for me or women's football. 'That was a moment of transition, and I lived both eras. However much I wanted to be a footballer, if everything isn't [in place], you won't be; you couldn't plan this career. I like this sport so much I'm enjoying it being professional. It's nothing like then. It's a joy now here; I hadn't lived this, ever.' 'I think these Euros will be unique. It's the trophy we're missing, and we feel it could be now, but we're facing very good teams and we know it's a hard, hard journey,' Putellas says. 'The cruciate was one day before it started last time, which was very tough to take. And on top of that just when I had felt really good, too. It's been a long time, and people really have no idea what you go through but this year I have that feeling again. The challenge for me now is to keep going or even get better in these Euros. I just want to play football.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
Alexia Putellas: ‘The cruciate, the meniscus: you've closed that cycle. Done. I felt free'
'It wasn't my knee that hurt, it was my soul,' the Queen says, but now she is back. There is a look in Alexia Putellas's eye, a light. 'You know that feeling, that sense of security when it's like you're capable of anything?' the double Ballon d'Or winner says, leaning forward on a sofa at Spain's Las Rozas HQ. 'At that moment, I felt it. And now I've got that feeling once again. I'm happy; the desire for these Euros is huge. I can't wait to start, to go and give my everything.' And Alexia Putellas's everything is everything. These are her third Euros – she scored a 94th-minute winner against England on competitive debut in 2013, aged 19, although she does not remember if she was given the goal – an indicator of how far she has come. Not only since 2013 but since the last time too. Switzerland stands as a kind of redemption, a reclaiming of her place after an English summer, and so much more, was taken from her by a torn cruciate suffered at Bisham Abbey a day before Euro 22 began. It was, she says, an hostia, the worst of blows. 'I had felt really good, and then … I knew the moment it happened. I heard a sound like a branch breaking. 'No, not now.' You never expect it, but at that moment. It's the day before.' Putellas had arrived as the world's best player, the tournament's greatest icon, but when the selección kicked off in Milton Keynes she sat by the touchline in a baseball cap and Virginia Torrecilla's shirt, crutches at her side. Two hundred and ninety-nine days would pass until she played again. Two years passed, two more operations – a World Cup, two league titles and a Champions League, attention and affection turned elsewhere – before Putellas was Putellas again, not just physically but emotionally. 'People don't know that with injuries you train more than when you're healthy but you don't get the reward of playing,' she says. 'I'm competitive and you set yourself challenges: 'When can I start walking?' 'A month.' 'OK, in three weeks, I'll be there.' But at first there's nothing. Just pain. And I felt a lot of pain. I couldn't sleep. I didn't have any appetite. It was a vicious circle. To even move, you have to …' Putellas hauls her leg on to the sofa, a demonstration of the dead weight. 'Post-op I had a very bad time,' she says, and it is not as if what followed was much easier either. 'You go from playing at a stratospheric level to not being able to walk, not knowing how, learning aged 27, 28. 'You get to the gym, which is at least your habitat. Then the pitch, where you think you're progressing but frustration comes because your last memory playing was like that and now you can't play a pass, can't turn, can't control. There are times you wonder [if you ever will].' 'They warn you that the day you get the medical all-clear, play again, it's still not done: you need time, adaptation, competition. Don't think you'll be the same; that's just not real. You still have three, six months. You have to try to give yourself that margin, control your emotions. And right in the middle of that period is a World Cup.' Putellas returned in late April 2023, after 10 months out. But given the final minute of the Champions League final, reward after her rehabilitation, she arrived at the World Cup having made six appearances, all as a substitute, and those warnings are not always easy to hear. 'You don't go thinking: 'I'm in that three-to-six month period'; you go thinking: 'I'll give my best.' 'Two years later, I see it: my level is completely different, even if at the time you don't realise. You're not the same physically as before. There are things going on, too. I arrived feeling confident; then came [defeat to] Japan and I was the head cut.' Did she feel singled out? 'No, not singled out. I understand that if things aren't working the coach has to change someone and it was me, and that's that.' That wasn't that, however. Putellas played an hour in the semi-final and a minute in the final. Spain's historic win, secured by a squad including only three of 15 players who had pulled out demanding improvements, was overshadowed by the Spain federation's president Luis Rubiales's unsolicited kiss of Jenni Hermoso. Again, Putellas took the lead, which was not to say it was welcome, rather that responsibility demanded it. 'I wish it hadn't happened,' she says. 'You try to tell yourself: 'It's great, we've just won the World Cup,' but you see the press, people, everything, and the focus isn't there. It was a shit situation, unpleasant, a burden.' In November Putellas underwent another operation, this time on her meniscus, a common consequence of cruciate tears. She missed 21 matches through to March, the doubts increasing, people saying her moment had passed, that she wouldn't ever be the same. 'I'm not going to lie: it gets to you,' she says. 'There are those close to you going through it, suffering, thinking you won't make it. I understand because the reality is there are cases where players don't get back, and it's not personal. [But] people don't know.' In part that goes with being Putellas: the world's best player, a footballer of huge symbolic significance, subjected to an exposure unimaginable before. A leader in the fight for professionalisation. A Ballon d'Or winner too, The Queen. 'It's been hard for me to come to understand that,' she says. 'I see football collectively, everybody equal. At first, it was difficult to manage the attention. I was very introverted. And when the individual awards started arriving it was like: 'I don't understand this'. With time, I came to feel: 'Well, they've put you there, fate wanted you there: use it.' A lot of what I did wasn't for me, but to make the game grow. 'Take the Prime documentary: I didn't want to do it. I said no four times. I watch a lot of sports documentaries and one day I was looking for one about a sportswoman. I only found Carolina Marín, the badminton player. That was the click. And I said: 'Do it'.' Did you like it? Putellas smiles. 'They might kill me for this, but I haven't seen it. I mean, I saw it, but before it was finished. I know how I am. I don't have the ego to watch myself. Sign up to Moving the Goalposts No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women's football after newsletter promotion 'It's not that I'm saying I'm nothing, but there have been many times I've felt like wearing No 11, being Alexia, is different and it [shouldn't be]. Starting with the management of this injury, the management of expectation, the management of the pressure and everything. But for better or worse, I'm Alexia. 'Now I handle that better. I don't focus on the [eulogies] or those who want to kill me. A friend said: 'I don't know how you do it but they either love you or hate you.' I try not to focus on either.' Well, most of the time, motivation found in those who doubted she would return. 'To tell the truth, that was also fuel, petrol. A challenge,' Putellas says. 'Like: 'You'll see.'' Oh, they see. Putellas arrives at the Euros as one of the continent's outstanding players, scorer of 22 goals last season and provider of 17 assists, directly involved in a goal (score, assist) every 44 minutes for Barcelona. Voted player of the season in Liga F, she has created more chances than anyone in Europe's top five leagues. AS summed it up: 'The best Alexia is back, or maybe even better.' When she returned to a struggling Spain side in February, six months later, she led a hammering of Portugal, a glorious roulette drawing a standing ovation from Vigo's Balaídos stadium. Defeat to Arsenal in the Champions League final hurt – it still does – but en route she had scored or assisted against every European opponent. It has been coming a year since the previous season's final, a refound consistency positioning her as a Ballon d'Or candidate again at 31. 'There's a moment I feel liberated and that's Bilbao,' she says. With five minutes remaining in the 2024 Champions League final against Lyon, she was sent on to protect a one-goal lead; instead she scored the goal that secured the title. Barcelona were European champions again and she was bowing before fans, 697 days after her cruciate tore. 'Physically you can be good, but if mentally you're not there, you're tense, you can't control yourself as you did. It's not that I came off the pitch that day thinking: 'I can do it,' so much as: 'That's it,' 'time's come.' The cruciate, the meniscus, the whole injury: you've closed that cycle. Done. I felt free. And from there, I've felt super good.' So here she is, 12 years on from her first Euros, three from what should have been her last, a legacy already left and more to leave. She gestures towards the end of the corridor, to the dressing room. Their dressing room now, their own place. Small details, she says, but ones that matter. 'I remember the first time [in 2013] perfectly. There's a goal that hit my pony tail and we won 3-2,' Putellas recalls. 'I picture myself as a girl, I hardly knew where I was. Everything has grown. I've developed as a woman too. That day, I would never have imagined how things are now, for me or women's football. 'That was a moment of transition, and I lived both eras. However much I wanted to be a footballer, if everything isn't [in place], you won't be; you couldn't plan this career. I like this sport so much I'm enjoying it being professional. It's nothing like then. It's a joy now here; I hadn't lived this, ever.' 'I think these Euros will be unique. It's the trophy we're missing, and we feel it could be now, but we're facing very good teams and we know it's a hard, hard journey,' Putellas says. 'The cruciate was one day before it started last time, which was very tough to take. And on top of that just when I had felt really good, too. It's been a long time, and people really have no idea what you go through but this year I have that feeling again. The challenge for me now is to keep going or even get better in these Euros. I just want to play football.'
France 24
2 days ago
- Sport
- France 24
More fans, more investment: Women's Euro 2025 is set to make history
Around 1,000 fans were on hand when England played one of the very first matches of the inaugural Women's European Championship in 1984. How things have changed. More than half a million tickets have already been sold for the 31 matches of this year's edition of the tournament, which kicks off next week in Switzerland. Organisers expect to break the attendance record of 575,000 set at the previous women 's euros in England in 2022 when 87,000 people packed into Wembley Stadium for the final. The popularity of women's soccer in Europe – and around the world – has accelerated in leaps and bounds in recent years. Players are becoming stronger, faster and more technically skilled, making the game more entertaining to watch. While it hasn't yet closed the gap with men's soccer in revenue, the women's game is seeing rapid growth in investment at both the international and club level. Players who started their careers over a decade ago say the pace of change has been stunning. 'If you look at a match from five years ago, it has nothing to do with the ones being played now,' said Barcelona's two-time Ballon d'Or winner Alexia Putellas, who made her senior debut in 2010. The 31-year-old Spain midfielder told The Associated Press that her generation and earlier generations never thought they would be able to make a living from playing soccer when they grew up. 'For sure it's about making our sport a little more visible, so that girls can dream of being soccer players," she said. 'I think that in recent years there has been a very good evolution. In the end, we just needed people to invest in us, to help us improve, and I think that change is happening." Governing bodies have set up initiatives to drive the game forward, such as European soccer body UEFA's 'Unstoppable' strategy – aimed at making football the most-played team sport for women and girls in every European country by 2030, while increasing the number of professional leagues across the continent. A major shift has happened at the club level, as Europe's powerhouse clubs such as Barcelona, Real Madrid and Chelsea started taking women's soccer seriously. More women's leagues across Europe have turned professional over the past decade, inspiring a new generation of female soccer players. 'In the last decade real progress happened, especially on the club side. You see real professionalization,' Norway FA president Lise Klaveness told AP. 'It is very important to have a full pyramid that girls can see that they can have this as a job.' She said the real DNA in soccer is the connection with local clubs. 'We haven't really had that with women. Now you see it more and more,' she said. She added that many top leaders on the men's side show real ambitions to raise their women's teams. 'If you meet the Arsenal president or (Joan) Laporta at Barcelona he feels very close to his women's team. When the women's team plays, he is there,' Klaveness said. As the club game has gotten bigger – England's top women's league is expanding – so have the international competitions. At Euro 1984, there were just four teams in the inaugural tournament: England, Italy, Sweden and Denmark. It wasn't until 1997 that it was expanded to eight teams, becoming 12 in 2009 and increased to the current format of 16 from the 2017 edition. At Euro 2009 there was an average attendance of just over 5,000 at the matches in England. In the same country in 2022, the average was 18,544. And just as attendance levels have soared, so have television viewing figures. Euro 2022 had a global cumulative live viewership of 365 million across TV, out-of-home viewing and streaming. That was more than double the number of live viewers compared to the 2017 edition (178 million) and 214% more live viewers than in 2013 (116 million). The rise in attendances is also evident in club soccer as women start playing in stadiums with bigger capacities and clubs start to invest more in their women's teams. A couple of Barcelona's Women's Champions League matches in 2022 drew more than 90,000 fans. A major change that's happened in recent years is investors are now looking at women's soccer as something you can make money off, said Seattle Reign coach Laura Harvey, who coached Arsenal and Birmingham City in her native England before moving to the US. 'For those of us who've been in this a long time – I was Birmingham City's head coach in 2006 – and to think where the game's evolved in 19 years or whatever it's been, it's just wild,' she told AP. 'I'm glad that I can be part of it.' The continued growth in popularity of women's soccer has the knock-on effect of more sponsorship, more prize money and more to invest in grassroots soccer and clubs. In 2017, UEFA made what was perceived as a bold move: unbundling sponsorship rights for its women's competitions and selling the commercial rights separately from the men's. That was done with the express purpose of 'accelerating the growth of women's football competitions' and was considered a success. So much so that FIFA has followed suit, as have governing bodies of other sports. UEFA now counts 11 dedicated women's soccer partners among its wider portfolio, including Visa, Amazon and Adidas. There are more than 20 sponsors for Euro 2025 and that revenue is projected to increase by 145% compared to 2022, according to UEFA. 'The impact of Women's Euro 2025 extends far beyond the competition itself,' UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin said in a report last month. 'With record prize money and unprecedented interest from sponsors, the tournament will bring more investment into the women's game than ever before.' The prize pot at Euro 2025 has been set at € 41 million ($47 million), more than double the € 16 million ($18.3 million) received by national associations in 2022. Moreover, players will receive a guaranteed share from their national associations for the first time. The men's Euro 2024 had a total prize fund of € 331 million ($347 million), with each of the 24 teams receiving a minimum of € 9.25 million and champion Spain earning € 28.25 million. UEFA's aim is that Euro 2025 will act as a catalyst for further progress in the women's professional game in Switzerland and across Europe. However, Klaveness has a warning: that the richest leagues shouldn't financially separate themselves completely from the currently semi-pro ones. 'Now I think the next step that's really important to go further now is … not to let the head move away from the body, then we would do the same as the men's side,' she said.
2 days ago
- Sport
Bigger, better, more popular: Women's Euro 2025 set to break records
Around 1,000 fans were on hand when England played one of the very first matches of the inaugural Women's European Championship in 1984. How things have changed. More than half a million tickets have already been sold for the 31 matches of this year's edition of the tournament, which kicks off next week in Switzerland. Organizers expect to break the attendance record of 575,000 set at the previous women's euros in England in 2022 when 87,000 people packed into Wembley Stadium for the final. The popularity of women's soccer in Europe — and around the world — has accelerated in leaps and bounds in recent years. Players are becoming stronger, faster and more technically skilled, making the game more entertaining to watch. While it hasn't yet closed the gap with men's soccer in revenue, the women's game is seeing rapid growth in investment at both the international and club level. Players who started their careers over a decade ago say the pace of change has been stunning. 'If you look at a match from five years ago, it has nothing to do with the ones being played now,' said Barcelona's two-time Ballon d'Or winner Alexia Putellas, who made her senior debut in 2010. The 31-year-old Spain midfielder told The Associated Press that her generation and earlier generations never thought they would be able to make a living from playing soccer when they grew up. 'For sure it's about making our sport a little more visible, so that girls can dream of being soccer players," she said. 'I think that in recent years there has been a very good evolution. In the end, we just needed people to invest in us, to help us improve, and I think that change is happening." Governing bodies have set up initiatives to drive the game forward, such as European soccer body UEFA's 'Unstoppable' strategy — aimed at making football the most-played team sport for women and girls in every European country by 2030, while increasing the number of professional leagues across the continent. A major shift has happened at the club level, as Europe's powerhouse clubs such as Barcelona, Real Madrid and Chelsea started taking women's soccer seriously. More women's leagues across Europe have turned professional over the past decade, inspiring a new generation of female soccer players. 'In the last decade real progress happened, especially on the club side. You see real professionalization,' Norway FA president Lise Klaveness told AP. 'It is very important to have a full pyramid that girls can see that they can have this as a job.' She said the real DNA in soccer is the connection with local clubs. 'We haven't really had that with women. Now you see it more and more,' she said. She added that many top leaders on the men's side show real ambitions to raise their women's teams. 'If you meet the Arsenal president or (Joan) Laporta at Barcelona he feels very close to his women's team. When the women's team plays, he is there,' Klaveness said. As the club game has gotten bigger — England's top women's league is expanding — so have the international competitions. At Euro 1984, there were just four teams in the inaugural tournament: England, Italy, Sweden and Denmark. It wasn't until 1997 that it was expanded to eight teams, becoming 12 in 2009 and increased to the current format of 16 from the 2017 edition. At Euro 2009 there was an average attendance of just over 5,000 at the matches in England. In the same country in 2022, the average was 18,544. And just as attendance levels have soared, so have television viewing figures. Euro 2022 had a global cumulative live viewership of 365 million across TV, out-of-home viewing and streaming. That was more than double the number of live viewers compared to the 2017 edition (178 million) and 214% more live viewers than in 2013 (116 million). The rise in attendances is also evident in club soccer as women start playing in stadiums with bigger capacities and clubs start to invest more in their women's teams. A couple of Barcelona's Women's Champions League matches in 2022 drew more than 90,000 fans. A major change that's happened in recent years is investors are now looking at women's soccer as something you can make money off, said Seattle Reign coach Laura Harvey, who coached Arsenal and Birmingham City in her native England before moving to the U.S. 'For those of us who've been in this a long time — I was Birmingham City's head coach in 2006 — and to think where the game's evolved in 19 years or whatever it's been, it's just wild,' she told AP. 'I'm glad that I can be part of it.' The continued growth in popularity of women's soccer has the knock-on effect of more sponsorship, more prize money and more to invest in grassroots soccer and clubs. In 2017, UEFA made what was perceived as a bold move: unbundling sponsorship rights for its women's competitions and selling the commercial rights separately from the men's. That was done with the express purpose of 'accelerating the growth of women's football competitions' and was considered a success. So much so that FIFA has followed suit, as have governing bodies of other sports. UEFA now counts 11 dedicated women's soccer partners among its wider portfolio, including Visa, Amazon and Adidas. There are more than 20 sponsors for Euro 2025 and that revenue is projected to increase by 145% compared to 2022, according to UEFA. 'The impact of Women's Euro 2025 extends far beyond the competition itself,' UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin said in a report last month. 'With record prize money and unprecedented interest from sponsors, the tournament will bring more investment into the women's game than ever before.' The prize pot at Euro 2025 has been set at 41 million euros ($47 million), more than double the 16 million euros ($18.3 million) received by national associations in 2022. Moreover, players will receive a guaranteed share from their national associations for the first time. The men's Euro 2024 had a total prize fund of 331 million euros ($347 million), with each of the 24 teams receiving a minimum of 9.25 million euros and champion Spain earning 28.25 million euros. UEFA's aim is that Euro 2025 will act as a catalyst for further progress in the women's professional game in Switzerland and across Europe. However, Klaveness has a warning: that the richest leagues shouldn't financially separate themselves completely from the currently semi-pro ones. 'Now I think the next step that's really important to go further now is … not to let the head move away from the body, then we would do the same as the men's side,' she said.
