The popularity of women’s football is a talking point again this week, thanks to comments from TalkSPORT host Alan Brazil.

The 65-year-old has had backlash from his comments live on the radio station on Thursday morning. In a conversation around Manchester United’s ‘Mission 21’ plan with the aims of restoring the former glory to the club, the fact that one of the aims of the mission is for the club’s women’s team to win the Women’s Super League (WSL) was brought up by journalist Shebahn Aherne.

But Brazil wasn't having any of it, claiming that fans are ‘not bothered’ by the success of the women’s team. After being challenged by Aherne, he refused to back down and was branded a ‘dinosaur’ by his fellow presenter.

It’s something that Aherne was completely right to call out. The claim that fans are ‘not bothered’ by the women’s side of the game is completely untrue and can be proven so by the numbers.

According to FootballWebPages, the average attendance in the WSL this season is 6,779, up from an average of 5,560 just two seasons earlier. Arsenal, historically the most successful women’s team have an average attendance of 28,119 so far this season, more than the average of all but three Championship clubs.

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But it’s not just those watching in the stadium. Such is the growing popularity of the women’s game, the WSL agreed a record £65 million five year TV deal with Sky Sports and BBC back in October. The deal will see almost every WSL game broadcast live on TV from the start of the 2025/26 campaign.

It’s comments like Brazil’s that dismiss the progress and the exponential growth that has happened around the women’s game over the last five or so years. Yes, the Premier League does get a bigger audience and more attention - but the league has been going for 32 years and men’s football has been part of the culture for years before that.

That's mainly because a ban was imposed on women's professional football on December 5, 1921. It was a ban that stayed in place for almost 50 years, with it imposed because the game was getting 'too popular' post World War One.

The ban was officially lifted in June 1971, with the club knock-out competition, which went on to become the Women's FA Cup. Unlike men's football, women's football had to start again, basically from scratch.

That doesn’t mean that there is no appetite for the women’s game as well as the men's, it's just not had as long to grow and establish. Why can’t both go hand in hand anyway?

The growth of the women’s game is only going to benefit the game overall, including on the men’s side, bringing in more revenue to the club and potentially attracting more female fans to both sides of the game - so why dismiss it like it’s not important? What message does that send to young girls making their way in the game, either on the playing side or in other roles?

If everyone had a similar attitude, then we wouldn’t have 28,000+ fans attending WSL games now. We wouldn’t have seen the Lionesses become the first England team to win a major trophy since 1966, and thousands of girls wouldn’t have been inspired to play football.

While Brazil may not have meant the comments how they came across, it’s something that needs to be addressed. The growth of the women’s game is continuing, showing that fans are more than bothered about the women’s teams, completely the opposite to what the presenter said.

It's something that will continue to grow in years to come, which is only a good thing for the sport on a whole.