How can the UEFA Women’s Champions League continue to grow?

At the start of 2024, ESPN's Gab Marcotti presented his wishes for the year, a belated Christmas list that could help common sense prevail in soccer governance. Among Gab's wishes were that the UEFA Women's Champions League (UWCL) be given a bigger platform to help the game grow, while noting the format change coming in 2025-26. To achieve this, the two burning questions are: 1) Does the wider football community have any interest in UEFA's premier club competition and 2) Will the reformatting help?

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As it stands, the lion's share of Champions League rights from the group stage onwards belong to DAZN, which streams all matches on YouTube and offers commentary in various languages ​​(including English and the official languages ​​of both teams). The matches are all there, accessible to those with an internet connection, but this isn't a normal TV channel shouting from the rooftops about its women's football content. Indeed, if you're a fan of women's football, you've probably already found your way to DAZN, as it also owns the rights to several domestic leagues around the world, broadcasting selected matches on its YouTube channel (with some geographical restrictions ). ).

Those expecting a traditional broadcast – or, more precisely, a traditional sports channel – won't find any games when flipping through their TV listings. But this means that, for the most part, UWCL is streamed for free and doesn't require a subscription, which is a great way to grow the game.

When it comes to the competition itself, the UWCL does little to address the imbalances within the women's game, but it can offer some respite and escape from the polarized domestic leagues. Catalan giants Barcelona tend to face tougher opponents in the latter stages of the UWCL than in most of their domestic matches in Spain's Liga F. To illustrate this, they won their first trophy of the season this weekend with a resounding 7-0 victory over Levante in the Supercopa – this is the same Levante team that sits second in the league, but is not hasn't taken points from Barcelona since 2018 because Barça are simply that good.

The midweek matches and accumulation of minutes that accompany the UWCL deal a temporary blow to parity, with teams like Barcelona and Chelsea theoretically more fatigued ahead of their respective weekend league commitments. But investment often begets investment and teams that finish in the Champions League are more likely to invest in improving and adding depth to their squads in the face of the rigors of European competition, keeping domestic gaps as wide that they always have been.

We often wish we had it all now: we want women's football to prosper both nationally and internationally across the world, not just in certain regions. Furthermore, women's football – and women's sport more broadly – ​​must be treated with respect. History looms large here, with national bans that have stunted the sport's growth – since the 50-year ban imposed in England from 1921, when the FA declared that “football is entirely unsuitable for women and should not be encouraged”, to similar prohibitions. restrictions in Brazil, Germany and other countries around the world – ensuring that women's sport continues to catch up with men's.

Maybe the wish should just be patience. Building teams and leagues takes time and constant investment, not least because we have already suffered many incidents of bubbles inflating quickly and bursting suddenly in women's football. For women's football to develop and be accepted, we must understand more broadly that it takes time to foster and maintain winning conditions.

It is with this in mind that we can consider the new format of the UEFA Champions League – the legendary 'Swiss model' which promises to align the men's and women's competitions. This model removes the four groups of four; instead, all clubs are placed in a giant table of 18 teams where each will play six matches (three home and three away) before the round of 16.

However, on the women's side, we are only just getting used to the reintroduction of the group stage, now in its current form. third year — and each season he delivered more and more. It is true that Lyon (6) or Barcelona (2) have won the last eight UWCL titles, but there is always a surprise before reaching the final. In this campaign, with two more days to play, Real Madrid are already eliminated since the Swedish vice-champion Häcken stood out in Group D; Ajax surprised the more established Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and Roma in a very competitive Group C and sits in first place; while Norwegian Brann took an unlikely point in Lyon to claim second place in Group B.

It's unclear whether the 'Swiss model' will provide us with the same drama, although the introduction of a second-tier competition, the UEFA Women's Europa League, will pose serious questions for some teams.

While professionalism in women's football is spreading across Europe, many leagues are so polarized that one wonders what the lowest ranked would gain from a European adventure. It may be a romantic venture with little downside for West Ham or Brighton in men's football, but underfunded women's teams will struggle much more with squad depth if a European competition is added to their schedule, while the financial rewards on offer (currently a minimum of €400,000 for UWCL group stage participants) are unlikely to balance the budget for additional overseas travel related to participation in these tournaments.

European competition may attract better players to these smaller teams, but the advent of a second-tier tournament may also simply serve as a peacemaker for UWCL wrestlers who fall at the first hurdle and prove to be a draft rather for the richest in Europe.

Maybe my cynicism is misplaced. I was among those who feared it was too early to expand the FIFA Women's World Cup to 32 teams in 2023, as it was only in 2015 that the competition expanded from 16 to 24 teams, which could have led to unbalanced scores. But only two nations (Vietnam and Haiti) failed to score during Australia/New Zealand — unlike the 2019 edition, where all 24 teams found the net — level n It did not decline with the increase in the number of participants and many Traditional powers were indeed caught off guard by those whose programs were less developed.

Perhaps the “Swiss model” will benefit women's football and give everyone a chance at European glory. Only time will tell, but for now, UWCL is already full of drama and intrigue and if you're not watching it, you're missing out.