“Let’s go and make history” is the message from the organisers of this year’s Women’s Euros, and it looks like the football tournament is about to do just that.

Hosted by England and starting today (6 July), the UEFA Women’s Championships 2022 is set to be the biggest women’s sporting event in Europe ever.

A record-breaking 500,000 tickets have already been sold for the live matches – twice as many as the previous Euros in the Netherlands in 2017 – around 100,000 international fans are expected to attend matches, and more than 250 million people around the world are due to the watch the games on TV.

England’s Lionesses and Austria will kick off the tournament at 8pm tonight when they play their opening group game in front of 75,000 fans at Manchester’s Old Trafford stadium. It’ll be the first of 31 matches across 25 days, culminating in a final at Wembley on 31 July, which has already sold out.

These huge numbers show how far the game has come since 2005, when England last hosted the championships, and raises the question: is women’s football finally getting the recognition it deserves?

Women’s football has had a chequered and frustrating past. Up to and during the first world war, the sport had been just as – if not more – popular than the men’s game, with matches bringing in crowds of more than 53,000 (at the time, the largest spectator sport attendance since records began) and female football stars, such as Lancashire’s Lily Parr, becoming household names.

The success was short-lived, however, when women were forced to stop playing in 1921. It wouldn’t be until 1971 that women in England were finally allowed back onto football pitches – a gap that greatly hindered the women’s game.

Even in 2005, when England hosted the women’s championship, the team were given second-class equipment and needed second jobs alongside playing for their country. It wasn’t until last year that UEFA doubled the fund for the Women’s European Championship, meaning 16 teams in this year’s competition will share €16 million (£13.7 million) – a huge percentage increase from the 2017 tournament that saw women’s teams share €8 million (£6.86 million).

In fact, this year’s tournament feels like a momentous moment for women’s football in England, with plenty of commentators and players reflecting on the changes they’ve seen throughout the years.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, ex-Lioness Fara Williams said: “I was lucky enough to play in the Euros in 2005 […] it was a very proud moment for us to play in a home Euros, but the game has moved on drastically since those times.

“I really do believe wholeheartedly that the game is in a very good place and a place where we can showcase women’s sport in general […] me and women before me have done our best to get the game into the position it’s in today and there’s still so much more to be done, but [this year’s team] deserves to be full-time professionals and play the game where their central focus is just being the best they can be as athletes.”

BBC sports commentator Gabby Logan, who will be leading coverage of the tournament across the channel this year, echoed Williams’ words. “I first presented a women’s football match when I first came to the BBC in 2007 and […] it’s been such an incredible journey. I think 2012 was a bit of a landmark as well, that Great Britain team playing in a packed-out Wembley against Brazil. There will be women in this squad who were 12 or 13 years old then and will have watched those games and seen that as a normal thing for women to play in front of a full stadium.”

Euro 2022 is also a landmark year for the Northern Ireland women’s team, who only reformed in 2004 after being dissolved at the turn of the century. Largely made up of part-time players and ranked last among the teams in the championships, they’ve already beaten the odds to make it to the group stages.

Every major tournament and every success from the Lionesses further deepens the reach of women’s football. Just as the 2019 Women’s World Cup opened up the sport to a whole new demographic of fans, it’s hoped the upcoming championships will do the same again, and then some.

And with the Lionesses among the favourites to win this year, fingers crossed we’ll be seeing a new dawn in the age of women’s football by the end of this month. 

Images: Getty