NFT art collection promotes national teams and youth: the long journey of women’s football

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The NFT art collection, launched by the SFV and Credit Suisse on July 11, provides innovative support for women’s football in Switzerland. Each purchaser of one of the 756 NFTs contributes to the promotion of women’s football in Switzerland, as 100 percent of the net proceeds go to the players of the A-Team on the one hand and to selected projects in girls’ football on the other hand. But should you still support women’s football today?

11.0 percent of Swiss Football Association (SFV) licensees are female. “Only” eleven percent. In all efforts to improve women’s football, the female gender remains underrepresented. There are several reasons for this under-representation.

A 2020 Federal Office of Sport (Baspo) study found that six- to ten-year-old boys and girls exercise equally. On the one hand, experts find physical reasons for this: Girls are known to enter puberty earlier.

On the other hand, it depends on the structure of the sport: in many disciplines, boys and girls train together for up to ten years. Then they are separated and there is often no further solution for the young women. As a result, it is more difficult for girls to join a sports club than for boys. According to the 2017 Baspo “Swiss Sports Clubs” study, although the share of women in Swiss clubs is generally slowly increasing, it was “only” 36.4 percent at the time – or just over a third.

Promotion of top sport means promotion of young people

What can help in many sports is the necessary visibility of women in top sport, who can act as role models. Top talent Iman Beney (16), who unfortunately got injured just before the tournament in Australia and New Zealand, has a poster of record international Ana Maria Crnogorcevic hanging in her room. Those who support the national women’s team and their players therefore indirectly also invest in sports promotion for girls – also through partners and various campaigns.

But back to the eleven percent share of women in Swiss football. Despite all the obstacles mentioned above, they are a record: never before have so many women played football in Switzerland. In 2018/19, the 9 percent threshold was broken after the proportion of women had only slowly increased in previous years. The step over the ten percent followed in 2021/22 – and now there are already eleven.

The growth rates are huge. Women’s football is flourishing in Switzerland like never before. Compared to other sports such as volleyball or athletics, the road to the same success or experience is still long. It is all the more important to support the women who have taken this path.

Source : Blick