UEFA pledges €1bn and six professional leagues in new women’s football strategy

UEFA has pledged to commit €1billion ($1.083bn) as part of a new six-year strategy in a bid to “create a sustainable future for women’s football in Europe”.

The strategy, entitled ‘Unstoppable’, will run from 2024 to 2030 and focuses on key long-term goals, including increasing the number of professional leagues across the continent from four to six, providing universal access to grassroots football and launching a second club competition with more opportunities for clubs to compete in UEFA competitions.

The governing body has also pledged to increase the number of fully professional players across Europe from 3,049 to 5,000 by 2030 (a fully professional player is defined by UEFA as a player with a written contract, is a full-time paid employee and does not need to supplement their football income).

The Women’s Super League in England, Liga F in Spain and Frauen-Bundesliga in Germany are all professional, while the Premiere Ligue in France went professional in 2024.

There are 1.6million registered women’s football players within UEFA, with 583 professional clubs offering women’s and girls’ football and more than 50,000 offering amateur football to women and girls.

A talent identification programme will also be launched in collaboration with national associations to provide better pathways for coaches and referees.

A key talking point in UEFA’s new strategy is player welfare.

An increasingly congested international and domestic fixture schedule has left players with little time for rest and recovery with United States women’s national team head coach Emma Hayes a vocal critic of the schedule, along with England head coach Sarina Wiegman.

As part of the new six-year strategy, UEFA says it has “guaranteed player welfare is at the heart of UEFA’s decision-making” by having more “informed conversations” with players and their representative.

The strategy also states that UEFA will work with national associations and other stakeholders to construct a “long-term women’s international match calendar that reflects the needs of the professional game”.

Long-term sustainability of women’s football is another major talking point in the strategy. While €164m was invested by UEFA member associations into women’s football in 2022-23 — a 20 per cent increase from 2019-20 — and attendance and broadcast records are regularly broken, women’s football continues to be reliant on associated men’s clubs for financial support.

Between 2020-21 and 2023-24, the percentage of women’s top-division clubs that operated independently of men’s clubs decreased from 46 per cent to 34 per cent, suggesting more clubs incorporated women’s teams into their club structure.

However, the percentage of men’s UEFA Champions League group stage clubs to have a women’s team also increased during that time, up from 66 per cent in 2019-20 to 88 per cent in 2023-24, suggesting a reliance on the success of equivalent men’s teams.

Uefa will commit €1bn of competition revenue and investment to follow through with the strategy. Investment is also set to be driven from UEFA men’s club competitions.

On the new strategy, UEFA managing director of women’s football Nadine Kessler said: ”European women’s football has never been in a better place. National teams and clubs are excelling thanks to enormous investments, improved competition structures and thousands of emerging professional playing opportunities.

“Women’s football in Europe has become a sport for the masses, attracting an ever-growing and diverse fan base, and partners that wholeheartedly contribute to its growth. It is our promise to keep investing and collectively lead the game forward, with all European national associations, leagues, clubs, players, fans and partners part of our journey – because women’s football is Unstoppable.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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