In July 2025 the women’s European Championship will head over to Switzerland. To organise an event like this, it needs more than just stadiums to play in, the host country also needs to be able to handle the costs created by the event. Part of the three host nations for the men’s Euros in 2008, Switzerland are not a new face to the party of hosts and are certainly aware of the costs created by such a tournament. After providing close to 80 million for the men in 2008, they now made an initial shocking decision to cut next year’s funds for the women to much less – 4 million Swiss francs.
For the men’s Euros in 2008, they promised and provided the 80 Million Swiss Francs as a budget for the event. For the women’s tournament this budget was cut from the originally promised already much lower number of 15 million to no more than 4 million Swiss francs. The decision by the government was substantiated with the following argument included –
“For a women’s tournament, there will be less security and public transport needed since they expect less spectators for each match compared to the men’s game, also regarding that less tourists and fans from other countries will attend.”
The Swiss football association (SFV) didn’t and couldn’t actively interfere with the government’s decision. All they could hope for was further decisions and a reevaluation of this massive budget cut. As well as players all over Europe and a significant portion of the fan community, many parties of the government were disappointed by this decision and spoke up about how unacceptable it was, not just for the tournament itself, but also for all the young footballers that were supposed to receive part of the fund as a support for their youth teams.
The host cities were ready to chip in more to make this tournament better for the players and the fans, with Zurich leading the way by offering to add close to 22 Million Swiss francs to the budget.
Sarah Akanji and Laura Rivas, both a big part of women’s football in Switzerland, with Akanji founding a women’s team in Winterthur ZH and Rivas working with and for the women’s team of the FC Zurich, started a petition. With it, they were hoping to collect a big amount of signatures from the public, to show how big the interest in women’s football in the general public of Switzerland really is, given we’ve all seen the impact the Euros in England had on the interest in the English Women’s Super League (WSL).
Using the growth of the WSL after the last Euros, the SFV has another vision for Switzerland – to use the Euros as an opportunity to grow interest and increase the number of 41,000 licensed female football players to 80,000 in the next four years by using parts of the funds for the youth teams. Without good funding, all this is impossible.
Thanks to this petition and many players speaking up about the issue, the Swiss government filed a new decision in favour of the tournament on May 30th. They are now willing to provide the originally promised 15 Million Swiss francs for the tournament. While this is still far from the 80 million budget in 2008, it also a step forward and the process truly showed how much potential and communal interest there is for women’s football in Switzerland.
During this year’s Euros, the Swiss TV channel SRF and the stadiums in Germany frequently included advertisements promoting the women’s tournament and the company “Swisscom” shot an ad including players of both the men’s and the women’s team. This is a big step forward regarding the visibility of women’s football, as there have barely been any ads covering it in the past years.
The Euro 2025 will kick off in Basel on July 2nd 2025. With less than a year to go, the hosting cities are holding events surrounding the tournament, with the vision of encouraging more people to attend the event and to get a first taste of what to expect. In addition to the informative purpose, the visitors can take part in other events, including attempting to take their own shots on goal. They will also have the opportunity to see the trophy.
The event in Bern at the end of June was used to start the “one year to go” countdown and it was a great success. The host city has also secured the captain of the Swiss national team, Lia Wälti as their ambassador:
“For me, the Euro’s in my own country is something I would have never dreamed of. I see it as an incredible privilege and am infinitely grateful to be able to play in such a tournament in Switzerland, especially in Bern in front of our own fans and to represent Switzerland”.
Sources:
Photo – https://www.justarsenal.com/luckily-arsenal-womens-lia-walti-is-on-the-road-to-recovery-after-health-scare/381543
https://www.bernerballzauber.ch/news/bern-starts-the-countdown
