Being the Women’s football club in the world to single-handedly raise the respect of Women’s football in the world is a remarkable feat. The Golden generation of the 2019-2020 to date Barcelona Femini side makes a strong case for the most dominant women’s club dynasty in football history.
The club was formed back in 1970 and it took several decades for the club to turn to a professional side. It was in 2015 after the Spanish women’s side clinched a sponsorship deal in 2014 from Stanley Tools. The need to turn professional was necessitated by the need to make football sustainable for the players and to make the club competitive in the European competitions.
Since turning professional there was no turning back for the Spanish giants. Sticking to their ‘scared’ style of play which was supplemented by players in the academy setup, on top of bringing style-suited players, the rise to the top was rapid.
Along the way, this club has single-handedly put women’s football on the global map. Here are some of the contributions.
The club holds two of the highest stadium attendances in the history of women’s football. On March 30, 2022, the Quarter-final second-leg tie against Real Madrid at Camp Nou, saw a record attendance of 91,553. This was remarkable and set a precedence in a series of new Women attendance records.
Similarly, on April 2022, a record-breaking crowd of 91,648 watched Barcelona beat Germany’s VfL Wolfsburg in the first leg of their 2021-22 UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-final at Camp Nou.
Since then, the attendance records in Women’s matches have been set, all thanks to Barcelona Femini for setting the standards.
Here are the knock-on effects of this feat;
- In the 2022-23 Women’s UCL campaign, Two-time European champions VfL Wolfsburg reached this season’s UEFA Women’s Champions League final after defeating the only English side to win the competition, Arsenal 5-4 on aggregate after a pulsating semi-final played in front of a British record attendance of 60,063 at the Emirates Stadium.
- In the 2023 Uefa Women’s World Cup held between New Zealand and Australia, nearly two million people attended the 64 matches played down under, blowing past the previous record of 1.35 million matchday fans at the 2015 World Cup in Canada.
- UEFA Women’s EURO 2022- a total of 87,192 spectators witnessed England’s final triumph over Germany at Wembley Stadium, bringing the total aggregate attendance to over half a million. The previous record crowd for a Women’s EURO game stood at 43,301 before a ball was kicked in England, that figure dating back to the 2013 final between Germany and Norway in Solna, Sweden. It was promptly smashed in the opening game of the 2022 edition as 68,871 fans turned out to watch England edge a 1-0 win against Austria.
It is without a doubt, since those record-breaking stadium attendances, fans all over the world began to embrace Women’s football. This is just but the beginning.
