FEATURE14 November 2022

The women’s game: How Euro 2022 changed football

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Liam Kay-McClean

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Euro 2022 thrust women’s football – and women’s sport generally – into the limelight, with research pinpointing how attitudes to women’s sport changed. By Liam Kay.

England's women's team winning the European Championships in 2022

We are living through a golden period for women’s sport. Euro 2022 could not have gone better for women’s football in England with a team ending 56 years of hurt and lifting England’s first major trophy since the men’s team won the 1966 World Cup in front of a sell-out crowd at Wembley Stadium. Millions more watched at home.

Aside from the Euros, the Women’s Super League has grown in prominence; The Hundred has reinvigorated cricket, with women’s teams given equal billing to their male counterparts; and 2025 will see the women’s rugby world cup land in England.

However, have these major tournaments and the resulting increase in media coverage shifted attitudes in the UK?

A survey by Ipsos, carried out during the tournament in July 2022 with a sample of 2, 196 adults aged 16 to 75, found that 44% of the British public – and 64% of football fans – were more interested in watching women’s football following the Euros, with ...