April 19, 2002

Women's soccer is now the most popular female sport in England

The England Football Association announced today that soccer is now the most popular female sport, following an audit of this season's playing figures that showed soccer has the biggest number of affiliated girls and women's participants, playing in competitive matches. 61,667 affiliated players exceeds the 55,807 of netball, which was the most popular sport.

Women's soccer has enjoyed a huge rise in participation since 1993 when there were only 11,000 players in England. Since that year, when the FA took it back after banning it for 50 years, participation has grown to over 61,000 for the 2001-02 season.

In the year 2000, The FA set a target of soccer becoming the number one female sport by 2004, but the creation of more opportunities for girls to play has seen a rapid growth which could not have been predicted.

The biggest growth area has been in girls soccer (under 14 years old), with figures jumping from just 80 teams and 800 players in 1993 to 2,451 teams with 41,667 players in the season 2001-02. There have been 63 more women's teams taking part in league and cup competitions too, bringing another 1,000 players into the sport.

Girls' soccer received a further boost today with the latest investment figures into the sport reaching ú8 million. The money will be pumped into the Girls Development Programme, funded by The Football Association and partners û including lottery funding and Sport England. This investment will go into several key areas: school and club football development, talent identification and coach and volunteer development.

Karen Doyle, Head of England's Women's Football, said that she hopes that fans of football and sport in general tune in to BBC1 to watch the England FA Women's Cup Final to find out what women's football is all about.

Hundreds of girls and women's football teams are expected to make the trip to Selhurst Park on May 6th for the AXA FA Women's Cup Final to see the flagship game in the women's football calendar. The game is also expected to reach an audience of over a million when it is screened live on BBC1 at 12.40pm.