Football Report: Membership, Investment and Growth Estimates for the Women’s Movement

In the period 2022-2023, the Italian Football Federation invested 7.6 million euros in women’s football.

It is just one of the data that can be read in the 14th edition of ReportCalcio, the annual report on Italian and international football drawn up by the Federal Studies Centre in collaboration with Arel, the Research and Legislation Agency, and PwC Italia.

A section dedicated to women’s football with some well-known figures and others that deserve further study.

On the one hand, the number of members is now known, about a dozen or so, to 42,852 members, more than doubling from 2008 to 2022 (i.e. in fourteen years).

The report frankly points out a gap with the main European realities defined as “still relevant”, especially when compared with countries such as Belgium, which has more than 50,000 members and a population of less than 12 million, and with the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. which have between 70,000 and 140,000 registered female footballers, with the Netherlands (around 135,000 registered players against 17.5 million inhabitants), world champions Spain (around 85,000, an increase of just under 30,000 compared to 2019), France. (around 167,000) and the two finalists of the last European Championship, Germany (187,000) and England (201,000).

Female referees are increasing: 2,264 in 2022-23, with Italy being the best practitioner in Europe and among the top 5 in the world.

The 2024 Coppa Italia final between Roma and Fiorentina, with an average of 530,000 viewers on Rai 2 (3.5% share), sets a historic record in Italian women’s football at club level. Roma-Barcelona, ​​a Champions League quarter-final, will be played at the Stadio Olimpico in March 2023 with 39,454 spectators, the Italian women’s football match with the highest attendance in the stadium in history.

Between 2019-20 and 2022-23, the revenue generated centrally by the women’s football department (and therefore excluding the revenue generated independently by the various clubs) grew by 147%, with an increase characterising all revenue items: audiovisual rights +216%, commercial revenues +94%, Serie A contributions +192%.

The growth estimates in the report instead refer to UEFA studies that take into account the average of European countries. If there are 10.2 million women’s football fans in Italy today, the number is expected to increase 2.2-fold by 2033, reaching 22.6 million. The same applies to the commercial value of Italian women’s football, which is likely to grow 7.1-fold, rising from €6.6 million in 2021 to €46.7 million in 2033.

The average growth in TV viewers per match in Serie A – from 68,617 viewers on Sky Sport (PayTv) in the 2018-2019 season to 119,459 in the first 11 matches broadcast on Rai/Raisport until the end of 2023 – is a bit tricky. The current situation of the TV rights of the Italian league. In fact, we would like to remind you that there are special negotiations underway between the Italian Women’s Professional League and the broadcasters to broadcast a match of a championship of your choice (Package A of the proposed bid) and to broadcast all matches. For each matchday (Package C), the decision indicating that the offers received did not reach the minimum requirements.

Tiziana Beckler