Women’s football will be exposed to a rare prime-time audience during Saturday’s Champions League final in Cardiff as part of a Uefa scheme to encourage growth in the women’s game .
Under the motto “Together #WePlayStrong”, European football’s governing body hopes to tempt more teenage girls to take up the sport by airing a commercial during the final between Juventus and Real Madrid.
The women’s game is set for a big summer with the Women’s Euro 2017 tournament taking place in the Netherlands next month. This follows the launch in the spring of the FA’s “gameplan for growth” in women’s football, in which it announced plans to double female participation by 2020.
The FA strategy intends to concentrate on primary school girls, believing habits formed while young are key to maintaining interest. The WePlayStrong campaign concentrates on teenagers, who are seen as harder to reach.
The commercial spearheading the campaign shows a girl making her first step into playing and follows her as she develops her skills and camaraderie before finally welcoming another new player into the game.
The FA’s estimates put the number of females between the ages of five and 16 at 900,000 across the UK, with 3,504 FA-affiliated girls’ teams. The total women’s participation in the UK across all age groups is estimated at 2.9m.
Uefa’s campaign chimes with the FA’s approach in that it believes changes in perception are key to growing the number of female players. As well as the commercial, which was also screened during Thursday’s Women’s Champions League final between PSG and Lyon in Cardiff, the programme will include further media and grassroots events across Europe.
Aleksander Ceferin said: “Increasing the participation and the role of women in football has been one of my main objectives, both before and after I became Uefa president.
“We need to change attitudes about women’s football, and give women of all ages more encouragement and opportunities to play. The women’s game has so much potential and I believe the Together WePlayStrong movement can be a driving force across our 55 national associations to achieve this.”
