Women's football about to break through
Football is the fastest growing sport for women in the Netherlands and now it has received a significant shot in the arm with the news that Ajax Amsterdam and probably also PSV Eindhoven are going to enter the women’s competition.
Will these two big names save a branch of sport that is struggling for recognition? They will certainly make a difference commercially, but what about the quality of the sport?
For years, women’s football has hardly made a mark in the Netherlands. Clubs have come and gone, supporters have given up and the business side only survives with the help of sponsoring and subsidies from the KNVB, the Dutch football association. Last season the Women’s Premier League consisted of seven clubs, best known of which are ADO Den Haag, Heerenveen, FC Twente and FC Utrecht.
Plunge
After years of avoiding the issue, Ajax has finally decided to enter women’s football. Starting next season, the Amsterdam club will join the premier league, which after the winter will become part of BeNe, a competition for clubs from Belgium and the Netherlands. Ajax says one of the reasons it finally took the plunge is because the rules for training women footballers have been changed. PSV, another big name in Dutch football, is also close to a decision.
Roger Reijners, coach of the women’s national team, is a happy man. He told Dutch daily De Volkskrant:
“It’s really great that a club like Ajax is going to take part. The name alone will mean a lot and can get things moving. It’s an excellent development that more teams are arriving and creating a platform for young women to take part in top-class sport."
Pond
National champions ADO Den Haag have mixed feelings about the developments. Rob Reijenga, the club’s manager of women’s football, is not entirely enthusiastic:
“Commercially the arrival of Ajax and PSV is a blessing. With big names like that you get more publicity and that attracts bigger sponsors. In terms of the sport, there are some attendant issues. The new clubs will have to put together a women’s squad and that means they’ll be fishing in the same small pond of top players. That will result in a watering down of the existing teams because they will have to replace people with younger talent who may not be quite ready yet.”
Peanuts
That doesn’t mean there will be the same merry-go-round of transfers you see in men’s professional football. Reijenga adds:
“There won’t be a huge transfer market. There isn’t much money in women’s football. The players usually only get paid expenses and most of them are attached to a specific region by their work, study or family. They aren’t suddenly going to move to the other end of the country to play football for peanuts.”
On the other hand, the number of players is increasing by 5 or 6 percent a year. The expectation is that, in about five years time, this new generation of women will give the sport a huge boost. The degree of skill will increase and with it the level of public interest.
Profits
Rob Reijenga believes women’s football is about to break though into the mainstream.
“Women’s football has always been totally overshadowed by the men’s game, but that is about to change. Look at women’s tennis, how popular that is. In other European countries, like Germany and Sweden, where the standard is higher than here, it’s already a serious attraction. The German football association, which organised the World Cup for women last year, made a profit of seven million euros from the event. The Champions League final between Lyon and Frankfurt, in Munich last week, attracted a crowd of 50,000! You’re not talking about a minor sport anymore.”
(imm)