Karen Carney highlights the issues holding women’s football back as shocking research reveals impact of FA ban

'The talent is there, it’s just a marketing issue'

Carney spoke to JOE as part of Three UK’s We See You campaign which saw the 37-year-old speak with an AI generated Lily Parr, a trailblazer of the women’s game before it was banned by the FA in 1921.

It is estimated Parr scored more than 960 goals in her career, which is more than Cristiano Ronaldo.

'How would it affect your business?'

Carney said: “We do know the game would be a lot further ahead if it wasn't banned, that’s just obvious. 52 per cent of Brits don’t even realise it was banned.”

Before the ban, games could attract up to 46,000 people at domestic level but the ‘play-gap’ had a major impact on the game, which is still being felt today.

Dr. James Reade, professor of Economics at Reading University, and Dr. Steven Brand, an economist at the University of Plymouth analysed the economic impact of the ban.

For the 2022/3 season, the WSL’s economy-wide worth in terms of its contribution to employment income was £58.7m, roughly a 40% increase from the previous season. 

The ‘Play Gap’ report estimates that the corresponding value of the WSL for the 2024-2025 season is £85.7m, and if women’s football had not been banned, it would be worth £123.2m (a 44% increase). 

Carney said: “If you were doing your thing as a supermarket chain and you're neck and neck with your rivals but then you weren't able to operate for 50 years - How would it affect your business?

“How would it affect your retailers? How would it affect your consumers? How would it affect your product? How would you manage back? What would you have to do differently? How would you compete when the space would be saturated by someone that had an advantage over you?”

According to the research, 44 per cent of Brits still can’t name a single professional female footballer which Carney blames on the marketing of the sport.

'The talent is there'

She said: “It is a marketing issue for the sport. We keep having to work on that visibility, the storytelling, educating people about the players, about sport, about the game.

“We have to improve our signposting on how to get to games, how to find games, where to watch games, how to understand the journeys of the players.

“The talent is there, it’s just a marketing issue.”

Women’s football in England really took off in 2022 after the Lionesses won the Euros on home soil. 

Attendances skyrocketed at WSL games the following season and kept growing the following year but this season so far has seen a dip in average attendance across the league which raises the question as to whether, domestically, the industry did enough to sustain and capitalise on that renewed interest.

Carney said: “Should we have done more? Did we miss an opportunity? Probably. The team knew they could go and get success, but were we lined up for everything else that followed? We’ve got to learn from that moving forward.”

'It can have damaging effects'

The Chelsea legend believes the attitude towards female footballers comes from the top and believes misplaced comments by club owners can have damaging effects. 

Manchester United minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has received criticism from those working within women’s football for his actions and comments regarding the club’s women’s team.

The former England international believes the team, who are currently second in the league, are overachieving given their treatment.

“Considering all the challenges that have been thrown at them, they’ve done unbelievably well so you have to give credit to Marc Skinner and credit to the group of players,” she said.

“For me, they are probably overachieving, given the resources of the squad compared to the other teams, what their net spend is.

“When someone believes in something from the top, when it's authentic from the top, it will naturally filter down - that's positivity. 

“You want to feel a part of it, in any industry, you want to feel included and to be thought of. But for me, it always comes from the senior stakeholders within any form of business. 

“Sometimes when it's not there, it can have damaging effects.”

Looking ahead to this summer, Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses have the opportunity to defend their European title and with it comes an opportunity to once again grow the game.

After they beat Spain in their recent Nations League fixture at Wembley, Carney is quietly confident Wiegman can lead the group to success again.

She said: “We know the group is ridiculously talented. We know that we've got a top manager, but we've been kind of grappling the last six or seven months - we've had injuries, we've had a bit of a roller coaster at times. 

“But what we saw against Spain in particular was a fantastic team effort, team performance, team resilience and we got a result. You have to ride your luck a little bit at times, but you know, it shows that we have the quality and we have the experience and fingers crossed, we can defend it.”