Women’s football reaching ‘tipping point’ as World Cup approaches

Paris (AFP) – As the 24 teams go through their final preparations for a Women’s World Cup featuring more heavyweight contenders than ever, many have one eye on an even greater prize than a winner’s medal.

The competition kicks off in Paris in a week’s time and after years of painstaking development and increasing media coverage, this is expected to the year the women’s game makes its definitive leap into the big time.

“I think there’s a bigger picture … this summer,” England manager Phil Neville said at the unveiling of his squad.

“I think this World Cup is a tipping point for the women’s game where I think it’s just going to go boom.”

The signs are encouraging on the field and off it.

Hosts France kick off the tournament on June 7 when they take on South Korea at the Parc des Princes in the capital, and ends on July 7 with the final at the Groupama Stadium in Lyon, which holds just over 69,000.

However when France hosted the men’s World Cup and Euros, the finals were held at the 80,000-capacity Stade de France, and large proportion of the matches at this summer are taking place in stadiums with a capacity of 25,000 or less.

“We did not always choose big grounds because we didn’t want any empty stadiums,” Noel Le Graet, the president of the French Football Federation, told AFP.

“We got the women’s World Cup in 2015 … At the beginning, possible host cities were not exactly shoving each other out of the way to come forward. 

“I was a bit scared about the Parc des Princes, but the opening match sold out in five minutes.”

– Out of the blue –

The demand for tickets has surprised the hosts.

“We didn’t see it coming,” said Erwan Le Prevost, head of the local organising committee.

Jean-Michel Aulas, the president of Lyon, who will host the semi-finals and final told AFP that “it was a gamble at the time that we bid for the games.”

Enthusiasm is running high for the eighth official Women’s World Cup in part because pool of competitive teams is deeper.

“We are in a virtuous circle with an audience that will come and watch,” said Jean-Michel Aulas, the president of Lyon, who will host the semi-finals and final.

The United States are the queens of the game after winning the World Cup three times and the Olympics four times, while Germany follow close behind with two World Cups and a whopping eight European Championships. Japan and Norway have both won the World Cup once.

from World Soccer Talk http://bit.ly/2wxRDCp