IMPROVED working conditions for players, gender equality in coaching and maximising attendances — the FA’s latest three-year plan for women’s football is a step in the right direction.

The 32-page document makes a number of pledges including all managers having the Uefa Pro licence, 50 per cent of managers being female and having all clubs sign up to the Football Leadership Diversity Code.

However, the most ambitious of these pledges is the target of an average attendance of 6,000 fans at each game by 2024.

So far, the game is far from a point where that seems anywhere near achievable, but they are the sort of numbers which are needed for the league to become financially sustainable.

It is the biggest challenge currently facing the women’s game: broadcast viewerships and the number of fans on social media are high, but that is not being realised in the numbers of fans who are turning up to matches in the WSL.

Without the benefit of a post-World Cup bounce, this season has produced a number of underwhelming attendances between two clubs in the top flight.

Take, for example, the FA Cup semi-final between Manchester City which saw a meagre 1,543. In what would become the two sides’ last game before the season was curtailed due to Covid-19, 3,543 supporters were at the City Football Academy in 2020.

It is not a problem limited to certain clubs, but instead a worrying trend which needs to be rapidly overcome for the game to progress.

Arsenal’s showpiece Emirates league debut only had around 8,000 fans there, while England vs Northern Ireland at Wembley had just over 23,000 in attendance.

The fact that attendances have been so low — when tickets are far cheaper than their men’s equivalents — is worrying and highlights how the strategy to entice fans needs to change from the one which is currently being used.

The women’s football community have become used to lines being parroted around inspiring girls to play the game and marketing being focused on them specifically.

Focusing on young people who do not have the money to spend and who might even be attending the game with a ticket they got for free is a bizarre policy.

At Everton v Manchester City at Goodison Park at the start of the season, I spoke to two fans in the concourse at half-time.

Supporters of the men’s team, they paid full price for their tickets, purchased a pint each at the break and, impressed by the quality of football on display, said that they were planning to attend a women’s game in the future.

That target market — those who are already men’s supporters — should be easily enticed by the idea of supporting the whole club, and have the money to spend which can then be reinvested into the team and the game as a whole to aid growth. 

Focusing on children infantilises the game and results in an outward image of one which is only for families, putting off others who may have otherwise decided to attend a game by the idea that they would not be wanted. Clubs must broaden their horizons if growth is to occur.

This weekend is the third instalment of Women’s Football Weekend and will act as a barometer of the current state of the game before the new plan is implemented.

It will likely struggle to live up to the 2019 edition where the attendance record was shattered at the North London Derby, but a sense of realism is needed to allow proper planning to occur.

The women’s game needs a dedicated plan and the hope is that the FA’s new directive will help with this.

All views should be listened to — from those who attend every week to those who have never seen a WSL game — and something different to what is used for the men’s side should be implemented to help overcome the attendance barrier.