The growth of football played by women in Spain has been exponential in recent years. Just a decade ago, in 2014, when the team had not yet played its first World Cup – it was in 2015 – there were only 44,873 girls who dedicated themselves to kicking the ball in a federated manner and four sports – basketball, golf, mountain and climbing and volleyball—had more followers than football. Ten years later, football has become the second most practiced discipline by women in the country for the first time in history. According to him Sports Statistics Yearbook 2024 As published by the Ministry of Education and Sports, at the end of 2023 there were 107,853 federation licenses, only behind the 138,267 licenses that basketball had.
The record of women who have played in teams this season in Spain – six figures had never been exceeded before – comes after the successes of Barcelona – three Champions Leagues in the last four years – and the World Cup that the Spanish team won last summer in Australia and New Zealand. However, the final against England was won on August 20, 2023, just a few days before the local, provincial and regional leagues began. La Roja also won the UEFA Nations League in February, the same month they qualified for their first Olympic Games, which will be held in Paris this summer. That is to say, some of the successes of the Spanish team and Barça – last Saturday they won the Champions League final against Lyon in Bilbao – came this same year, so we will have to see the effects that these will have next year on the number of girls who dare to kick the ball.
The rise of this sport in women has skyrocketed in the last decade. Since 2015, federation tokens have grown every year – with the exception of 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic – the F League obtained professional status for the first time in the 2022/2023 season – the entities are the ones who exploit the competition and manage the income—, more and more teams that did not have a women’s section are taking the step of creating one—Celta has been the last—, the girls finally have references like Aitana Bonmatí, the current Ballon d’Or winner, and all the important matches are held. They televise, something that did not happen until very few years ago.
For the first time this season, women’s football has surpassed mountain and climbing (91,644 federation tokens this season) in licenses. Last year it surpassed golf (82,035) and in 2017 it already surpassed volleyball (87,669). Even so, the number of girls who practice this discipline in Spain is much lower than that of men (1,140,658).
The road to the growth of women’s football has been bumpy. The pioneers suffered the marginalization of the dictatorship and the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), which for years refused to admit women’s football within its ranks. The organization took the step in 1980, but the conditions in which they played were terrible until very recently. Many went to the national team at the cost of losing money and vacation days – they combined work with sport – but their demands and their fight opened the way for little by little and with many difficulties to achieve improvements in all areas, from strictly sporting until off-field preparation.
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