Football clubs don’t see a ‘championship effect’ from women’s Europe win

Photo: KNVB.nl

Just four in 10 football clubs in the Netherlands say more women and girls have joined since the Dutch women won the European championships this year. The rest say they have detected no such ‘championship effect’, public broadcaster NOS has found.

Clubs in Groningen and Zuid-Holland in particular have recruited more new female players than last year, NOS said.

Football is the fastest growing organised sport  for women, NOS writes. Some 150,000 women now play the game compared to 75,000 in 2004. Most new football enthusiasts were under 13.

Football association KNVB figures show great regional difference in women’s football membership. The highest number can be found in towns and cities along the Wadden coastal area and in the border area south of Breda. One in five footballers there is female, NOS writes.

The lowest number of female KNVB members, 0.5%, was recorded in hockey town Bloemendaal.

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