How Her Game Too are transforming football for women from the pitch to the stands

The Women’s Euopean Championships is almost upon us, with the tournament again seeing women taking centre stage in the world of football.

England are looking to defend the crown that they earned three years ago, something that caught the imagination of football fans and launched women’s football onto a whole new level. Wales will also now look to make history after qualifying for the finals in Switzerland.

Despite the success of women in the sport, there are still some problems for females wanting to get involved, either as a fan, a player or in another capacity. Just this week the Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) released a video challenging sexist chanting that remains commonplace in the men’s game.

READ MORE: Spain superstar Aitana Bonmati released from hospital days before Euro 2025 kick-off

READ MORE: England get major Lauren James injury update as Chelsea star gets massive Euro 2025 boost

It involves real footage of a female fan being subject to sexist chanting as she was simply making here way home from a game.

As well as the FSA, there are groups specifically working to eradicate sexism and misogyny from the game. Voluntary organisation Her Game Too is playing a big part in helping women and young girls feel comfortable in pursuing their passion for football.

“Her Game Too is an anti-sexism campaign, our primary focus is on eradicating sexism from the stands in football,” chief operating officer Roopa Vyas told football.london. “So a lot of our work involves reaching out to football clubs, supporting fans at particular clubs, especially fans who have experienced any issues of sexism or things like sexual assault in the stands.

Several London clubs, including Brentford, Fulham, QPR and Charlton are part of the 80 professional clubs partnered with Her Game Too. But what does that partnership mean?

“With football clubs, we work with them to ensure they’ve got a robust reporting system that sexism and misogyny are on all or their marketing and comms around the reporting system and it’s advertised clearly that sexism can be reported,” Vyas explained. "Because that’s something that when Her Game Too started it wasn’t very present and it wasn’t very obvious for a lot of fans, including myself, that things like this can be reported and should be reported.

“From my personal experience, I experienced sexism as long as I can remember, at football matches, on social media when I talk about sport, but I never really thought that I could report it anywhere or that anything could be done and I just kind of accepted it as being a woman in a male dominated environment and that's what many women and girls just kind of went with and never thought that they needed to action it. Whereas now it’s a bit clearer that they can report it, something will be done and that people will listen.

“It’s about ensuring that people understand, it’s not that the football clubs weren’t doing the right thing previously but sometimes it does take that female voice in a crowd full of men to really stand up for our fellow female fans as well.”

Female fans in the stands, are still the minority when going to watch Premier League and Football League games. Those in attendance, or even those following from a distance, still face challenges, both in person and online. The same for those who play the sport themselves.

Vyas explains: “The biggest one is not being taken seriously, a lot of people kind of downplay, even if you just tell someone you’re a football fan, they just think you’re either a casual fan or a fan of a particular player or you don’t really know what’s going on.

“It’s not just men who have those attitudes as well as lot of women run with that narrative, but like I said, it’s just about teaching people that it’s normal for women to play football, to watch football to work in sport in general and, yeah, just changing attitudes.”

But how can those attitudes be changed? The Lionesses’ success at Euro 2023 means that things took a big step in the right direction, and it could take another big step this summer with coverage of the tournament only getting better and more prominent.

“Her Game Too launched in May 2021 and then the next year the Lionesses went on to win the Euros and I just think the timing of that encouraged the campaign because everything we built in that first year really came to fruition and we saw across the UK,” Vyas said about England’s success.

“I’m based in wales myself and I’ve even seen the impact on the Lionesses’ success here in Wales, there’s a lot more girls getting involved with football, they can see it as a potential career or a hobby that they are allowed to have and even young boys are now idolising female footballers and I think it’s really nice to see that it’s becoming normalised for them.

“So yeah, there’s definitely been a huge positive impact from the Lionesses’ success and now the Wales women’s team’s success as well.”

As well as working to change attitudes towards females involved in football, Her Game Too also works to give girls and women the chance to play the game. The Her Game Too training centre runs in Cardiff on a Monday evening, providing young girls the opportunity to play in a safe, no pressure environment.

The organisation also supports those who work in football, in whatever capacity. It ensures that there is a safe place to go and people available to talk to.

Having just celebrated their fourth birthday, there are clear ambitions for the future and beyond.

“We’re currently an unfunded, voluntary campaign, so for us, the next five to ten years we want to be better established, we hopefully want to have some financial support as well so we can do this full-time.

“I think what we’ve achieved just doing this as volunteers and this is alongside day jobs and busy family lives, is phenomenal, so if we’re able to take this full-time I think the sky is the limit for us and hopefully we can continue this momentum and get more girls and women into football, ensure that people in all areas of sport are being supported in the right way and have got the opportunities.”

More success for the Lionesses this summer will again help. But the work being done by Her Game Too will only see football be a better, safer and more accessible place for females both now and in the future.