For so many years, women football players were barely accepted, hardly respected, grossly underpaid, totally underrepresented in the media, and had to cope with endless chauvinist and sexist comments and jokes.

Unwavered, they kept training, working hard, playing football. Some became inspiring leaders and role-models. Bit by bit, they helped society to expand its perspectives, open their minds, watch a game for the football quality of the game, the skills of the players.

This is at least what seems to have emerged in the 2022 Women’s Euro in Great Britain. The audiences for that championship had never been reached before.

The UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 in Switzerland completed the change in paradigm at the European level. Enormous crowds flooded the host cities, streaming through the many avenues to the stadium. In Bern, dressed in the color of their national team, they turned into a joyful red river, flowing from the station to the stadium.

Hundreds of thousands of persons watched the games, the media reported excitedly, the games were a topic of conversation at home and during the breaks at work.

Most games were of excellent quality, fast and elegant, and there was far less violence, in and around the fields, than when men play.

In Switzerland, a new phenomenon emerged, the women’s national football team, coached by the incredibly gifted and strategic Pia Sundhage, had become a fully-fledged national team. Players were known and supported. The communion between the public and the team was of a very unusual quality, almost sacred.

The UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 was a serious matter. Finally.

Yes, cultures can know these wonderful moments of being more inclusive, more life-giving, more just. In Switzerland, we have just experienced it. What a joy.
May this momentum be nourished, last and grow.

I look forward to future high-quality football games, men’s games and women’s games.

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