Opinion: the Irish team's qualification for next year's World Cup is a chance to maximise interest by professionalising the game at home
By Payam Ansari and Gary Sinclair, DCU
The Irish women’s soccer team made history last week, defying the odds and the European seeding system, to qualify for a major tournament for the first time. Without a doubt it is one of the most important milestones in the history of Irish women’s sport. More than 350,000 TV viewers watched the game, breaking the record for women’s sport in this country.
Making their way to the 2023 World Cup via Amber Barrett's "big toe poke", the team wrapped up an exciting chapter, which included other notable successes such as a record victory against Georgia (11-0) and a record stadium attendance against Finland (6,952).
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, Lisa Fallon on how the Irish team's qualification for next year's World Cup comes just five years after threat to go on strike
The Irish women's team has come a long way. In the aftermath of the celebration, much focus has turned to the famous press conference in 2017 when senior Irish players threatened to strike. It was not the first time that the threatened strike was linked to the achievement of a significant milestone. This was also referenced after the adoption of equal pay for the women's national team and also after the sponsorship deal with Sky.
No one can dispute the influence of that protest in communicating to the wider public the high levels of inequality female players had to (and still do) endure. The team's qualification for the World Cup is the culmination of decades of the tireless efforts of different stakeholders at all levels of the game, who have dedicated their lives to growing the game and have fought admirably for some semblance of parity.
Worth remembering, we wouldn't have the first picture if it wasn't for the second picture pic.twitter.com/n2oYIgQuKN
— Snobby metropolitan gatekeeper (@steveohrourke) October 11, 2022
But as happy as we all are right now, we need to remember that the fight very much continues. One only has to look at the poor infrastructure of the Women's National League, the lack of any meaningful media coverage (beyond the national team) and the low level of professional resources that are present at different levels of the game. It is easy to see how far behind other European leagues the Irish league is, as it is so clearly under-funded and receives so little media attention. There is, though, some hope that the growing interest in the national team can be the spark that ignites the domestic game and broader levels of participation.
As part of an ongoing European Union funded research project on women's football in Ireland, we explored the issues and challenges the sport faces. This consisted of participant fieldwork and interviews with over 40 key stakeholders, including coaches, club and national team administrators, players, fans, media and commercial partners.
One of the issues that is central to the development of the women’s game is that of professionalisation. Although it has been recently reported that the clubs are cautious of the financial risks that will come into play with any potential moves towards professionalisation, we found that the majority of stakeholders supported such change. This is primarily motivated by the desire for equality, not necessarily any financial rewards the process could create.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Radio 1's History Show, Helena Byrne on the history of women's soccer in Ireland
What causes debate within the women’s soccer community is when it should actually happen, what professionalisation should actually look like and who exactly should be involved in the process. Irish women’s club soccer is heavily reliant on volunteers across all aspects of the game. It is not just the stewards on match days; it is the coaches, the marketing and social media managers, and the different administrators of the clubs. The main reason for this? Lack of funding.
There is a perception that professionalisation just involves the players being paid to play full-time, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. It is not just the standard of football that needs professional levels of investment to improve, but also the promotion of the game. One of the main challenges in Irish women’s soccer, especially at club level, is its low visibility. There is very little mainstream media coverage of the league and its players. Improving the visibility should be the priority to grow the game, increase grassroots participation, attract more fans to stadiums and raise the commercial value of the sport.
The clubs are not ready to professionalise at this juncture. It's not an easy job to increase the fanbase, sign sponsorship deals and sell broadcasting rights if clubs only rely on volunteers for key positions such as marketing or social media managers. Contrariwise, the lack of volunteers is also a big problem for the current management of the game. Women’s soccer does not have the volunteer culture or resources that the GAA has benefited from historically.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland in 2014, Louise Byrne reports on Ireland's newest women's soccer team, Diverse City
This is the opportunity of a lifetime for the FAI and the women’s national league to maximise the growing interest in the Irish team, invest in the infrastructure at grassroots level and back people who know and understand the game. This is in addition to planning out contemporary fan engagement and social media strategies that our contemporaries in the UK and western Europe have been implementing in women's soccer in recent years.
Irish people love a sporting bandwagon and it will be in full force for the World Cup next summer. We only have to look at the explosion of interest in football following the success of the men’s team in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, we also need to look at how little we capitalised off that success in terms of supporting the men’s domestic league when it needed it most. We can’t make the same mistakes again.
Dr Payam Ansari is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at DCU Business School. Dr Gary Sinclair is Associate Professor in Marketing at DCU.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
