EM in England | EM as “push”? DFB doesn’t just have to fight for football girls

In the YouGov poll, 27 percent said they watch some games. Eight percent want to follow all DFB women’s games or don’t know it yet. The team of national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg meets Denmark at the start on Friday (21.00 CEST/ZDF) in London. ARD and ZDF will broadcast all 31 games on TV or via live stream. The Internet sports channel DAZN also shows the games.

More visibility is one of the goals of the “Strategy Women in Football FF27”, which the DFB published on Monday. “We really have to step on the gas now,” said Doris Fitschen, overall coordinator and head of the “Women in Soccer” project. The “FF” in the 34-page strategy paper also stands for “Fast forward” (“Fast forward”), the 27 for the time goal of numerous measures and the 2027 World Cup. The DFB has applied for this together with Belgium and the Netherlands.

By then, the DFB wants to increase the number of female footballers, referees and coaches by 25 percent. The media coverage of women’s football should double across all platforms. According to its Vice-President Sabine Mammitzsch, the association is setting “a really big exclamation mark” with the project in time for the start of the European Championship.

Most recently, the DFB had failed to boost the popularity of the Bundesliga after the 2013 European Championship triumph and the 2016 Olympic victory of the German women. The average attendance there is still less than 1000 – while interest in the other European leagues has grown enormously. In addition, there are the youth problems at the base and the problems of the national team, which gambled away the Olympic participation with the World Cup quarter-finals in 2019.

According to ex-national player Fitschen, the state associations now want to be supported in “developing their own women’s soccer strategies”. When it comes to women’s and girls’ football, said the new DFB boss Neuendorf, “you just have to say that we could use a lot more players there. A lot more girls, especially, but also referees and coaches.”