As women’s football continues to gain popularity, Karen Dobres critiques the failures the FA have made in promoting the game, and outlines her own ways of driving the sport forwards.
The Lionesses are one of modern-day England’s biggest success stories. Consecutive European Championship victories, sandwiched between a World Cup final appearance Down Under, has secured Sarina Wiegman’s side a place in the history books.
And in doing so, they have seemingly gripped the nation during the process.
The thrilling Euro 2025 penalty shootout victory over Spain in the final was watched by a peak audience of 12.2 million on BBC One, making it the most watched programme of the year at that time.
This catapulted some of the stars into becoming household names, as women’s football cemented their place into mainstream culture.
Despite this success, domestic women’s league football has failed to capitalise on the momentum the Lionesses have gifted them.
In fact, the attendance figures post World Cup for the Women’s Super League (WSL) showed that crowd levels are actually in decline.
For instance, between the 2023 and 2026, attendances in the WSL fell by 8.5% to an average of 6,850 per game.
This figure is inflated by Arsenal who obliterate the standards with a crowd of almost 34,000 attending games at the Emirates Stadium on average.
Inequality gap hindering progress
So, why is this the case?
When it comes to football governance in England, the FA are the biggest stakeholders and, in their own words, are responsible for ‘promoting, developing and regulating the game at all levels’.
However, former co-owner of Lewes FC, Karen Dobres believes that the FA aren’t doing nearly enough to close the gap of inequality between men and women’s football.
Dobres was part of the board which founded Equality FC which gives an equal budget to both Lewes FC’s men’s and women’s teams and says that the FA needs to make up for lost time after banning women from playing football in 1921.
Dobres said: “The FA have apologised. What is the point of a formal apology without a matching action?
“We need a petition asking what the Suffragettes asked for, which was deeds, not words.”
Dobres hones in on how the FA Cup provides a great opportunity to bridge the inequality gap, one that unfortunately isn’t being taken.
She continued: “The men are getting £23.5 million for their prize funds and the women just £6.5 million. This could be used to irrigate the women’s game where it’s lacking, which is in that middle.”
Women’s football journalist Annabel Bassett also admits that ‘at the moment, the disparity is quite shocking.’
“The FA commit to money trickling down the men’s pyramid, we need to see football bodies step up and invest more, but I’m not sure how likely that is.”
It’s not just the middle which is struggling financially, it is also at grassroots level too, despite the best efforts of the Lionesses.
A recent Sport England survey showed that there is a 22% gender gap in team participation in sport, despite 90% of girls admitting that watching the Lionesses made them feel ‘happy and proud’.
This shows that the problems in women’s football no longer rely on representation, but instead the access they have to play the sport.
Lionesses success impacting established women’s teams
One of the downsides of the Lionesses success, according to Dobres, is that wealthier teams are now ‘waking up to the potential of their women’s teams’, and replacing smaller sides who previously fronted women’s football.
However, Dobres doesn’t believe the blame should be put on the national team, but instead on the FA who have ‘short-sighted vision’, ‘vested interests’, and ‘a lack of independent strategy.’
Lewes FC were fighting for promotion in the Championship (currently WSL2) when the Lionesses first won the Euros back in 2022, and Dobres admits there were barriers put in place which effectively cost her side from ever being able to reach the top tier.
Dobres said: “As we became more successful we were hoping to get into WSL1 and that women’s football wouldn’t grow so much that the window would close.
“But at that point, the FA licensing requirements were so expensive, such as the grade of floodlights and the amount of turnstiles, they were almost pricing us out anyway.’
Innovative ideas needed to transform game
With this in mind, Dobres is ‘fed up of waiting’ for big clubs to decrease the financial gap in inequality and feels it is unlikely to happen soon, and that it’s not worth people ‘expending too much energy on trying to make it work.’
Instead, she suggests there are plenty of free ways to market women’s teams, without the detriment to their male counterparts.
Dobres said: “They’re not even changing their websites and social media handles to make more equal to say @LiverpoolMen, for example.
“That’s one decision they can do straight away and if the their intentions are true towards your women’s team, you can make it not default male.
“Equal playing budgets is unrealistic so when they’re not doing these little things it sends a signal that they don’t really care about the women.”