Crowd size fatigue?

A history-making, record-breaking weekend

A crowd of 50,827 watched Barcelona finally beat Olympique Lyonnais for the first time on Saturday, and win back-to-back European titles. It was the largest crowd to ever witness a Uefa Women's Champions League final.

As the number was announced over the tannoy at San Mamés Stadium I made a mental note and thought, ‘great, another tick to the record-breaking and history-making box then for women's football’. And on I went with my reporting.

Then, I caught myself. Sat in the press box in Bilbao, overlooking the cavernous arena, it struck me that these kinds of numbers are no longer surprising when it comes to women's football.

I have been lucky to report on the sport for the last six or so years, during its greatest period of growth and investment. It means I’ve written the words "largest ever crowd" or “attendance record” what feels like countless times.

Whether it was the record attendance for a domestic game in England, a new high for a major tournament, or the biggest crowd to witness a Champions League final, I have reported on many. I’m not saying for a moment that I am bored of it, but it did - momentarily - feel like a slightly repetitive narrative on Saturday.

My view from San Mamés

Just in England this past season, it has been difficult to keep up. Arsenal have set WSL attendance records three separate times, their 60,160 crowd at the Emirates against Manchester United sitting pretty at the top of the record books - for now. More than 1,000,000 people attended a Women’s Super League and Championship fixture for the first time this season. The average crowds at WSL games are up 41 per cent year-on-year, at 7,363.

The fact high attendances are becoming more and more commonplace is a fantastic thing to witness and an amazing sign of consistency in the women’s game.

It is rare that the attendance at a men’s football match will ever be picked out, or headline-grabbing, because it is not extraordinary anymore. Sustained interest is not newsworthy, it’s the norm.

Maybe one day we will get there in women’s football but, before we do, there is a danger of those milestones being taken for granted too. I noticed myself doing just that for a (fleeting) moment on Saturday.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't completely lost my sense of wonder about how far things have come.

Even before I arrived in Bilbao, while making the six-hour drive from Barcelona that morning, I kept pointing out cars zooming down the motorway with club flags hanging out of their windows.

I was still awestruck as I got off the packed tram from the city centre, and had to wade my way through Barcelona fans lining the surrounding streets to the stadium. They were there in their thousands, walking along as if in euphoric pilgrimage to the stadium known as El Catedral. They whistled in unison at the Lyon team bus when it arrived, before chanting Barcelona songs to warmly greet their Catalan side.

As I battled through the sweaty crowd (and cursed myself for not picking up my accreditation earlier), I felt overwhelmed by the turnout.

A wave of emotion caught me off guard as I took my seat in the press box too. I looked out onto the crowd as they chanted, cheered and applauded the women they had come to watch. The atmosphere at San Mamés was electric from start to finish, thanks mostly to the 40,000 fans from Barcelona. It was an occasion befitting of these two giants in women’s football, who have remarkably shared the last nine European titles. A ball had yet to be kicked, but I am not ashamed to admit that my eyes did well up.

I felt similarly twice before: at the Euros final at Wembley Stadium in 2022 and at El Clasico at the Nou Camp in 2022, when a world record crowd of 91,553 turned up on a Wednesday night to watch the women play. Like then, Saturday felt like a moment to savour.

By the time the 50,827 crowd was announced late in the second half though, I was in full work-mode and the awe had worn off slightly. Maybe it was the hint of cynicism that comes with this job or my personal fatigue around the “game-changing” narrative that surrounds (and sometimes suffocates) women’s sport, but for a moment I wished we did not need to highlight the crowd numbers. Could we not just appreciate the game itself? It had been tight and defensive, but Aitana Bonmati’s breakthrough goal had livened up proceedings and we were in for a nail-biting final 20 minutes.

But then a tweet made by Uefa after the match brought me back from my stroppy internal monologue. The Uefa social media admin posted two pictures side-by-side: one of the crowd at this year's final next to that of the final from 10 years ago. In 2014, a sparsely filled stadium of 11,217 saw Wolfsburg lift the trophy in Lisbon. This time, the flag-bearing partisan crowd had packed out one of the most impressive stadiums in European football.

The press gantry

The contrast was massive. But it was a selective choice of comparison from Uefa as, two years prior to that 2014 image, the previous record-breaking crowd of 50,212 had attended the final in Munich.

So what happened in the interim? In the 12 intervening years between 2012 and 2024, no final ever broke the 35,000 mark. Most of them were well below 20,000. Put it down to poor marketing, lack of resources afforded to women’s football and also - lets face it - Uefa selecting some meagre-sized stadiums to host for a number of years.

The long gap between these records is a lesson in how not to seize momentum. It should serve as a reminder that, for all the progress in women’s football of the past few seasons, bigger and better futures are never guaranteed.

We have plenty of past examples. It took 23 years for the official world record women’s football attendance, set at the 1999 World Cup Final at the Rose Bowl, to be broken in Barcelona's Champions League win over Real Madrid two years ago.

Then there are the "unofficial" records, set before Fifa, Uefa and some national federations even deigned to recognise - let alone support - women's football. An estimated 110,000 at the Azteca Stadium for the unsanctioned World Cup final in 1971. Before the Football Association banned women’s football in 1921, the Dick, Kerr Ladies attracted 50,000-strong crowds too. That was all stripped away for decades, left forgotten, because of lack of opportunity and plain old discrimination.

So, though I had a momentary blip last weekend and I still can’t wait for the day where 50,000-strong crowds become completely normalised, we’re not there just yet. So I won’t tire of hearing those record-breaking attendances called out, writing them into my intros and seeing them dominate the headlines. We can’t stop celebrating them, not until this reality feels as secure as it does in men’s football.

Recommendations

Speaking of record-breaking, on Monday Rafael Nadal possibly played his last ever match at the French Open. It is where he won 14 titles, an obscene haul representative of his ridiculous clay court dominance. Though he is aiming to return to the Roland Garros site for this summer’s Paris Olympics, it felt like the end of a tennis era to see him exit Court Philippe-Chatrier.

He was beaten by Alexander Zverev, the fourth seed in Paris, whose public trial for domestic violence allegations begins back in Germany this Friday, 31st May. Though he does not need to be present in Berlin, and will continue to play at Roland Garros this fortnight, you can follow reports from the proceedings via journalist Jonathan Crane, who works for DW - a German international broadcaster. Find out the latest via his Twitter/X here.

To track all the biggest stories from Roland Garros, I also refer you again to my favourite trio in tennis, The Tennis Podcast, who are posting daily episodes from Paris.

That’s all for this week, let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Molly x