‘Disappointing’ cut to Euro 2025 shows Switzerland have failed to learn the lessons of the Lionesses and England 2022

Historic milestones in women’s football are coming thick and fast these days.

For the first time ever, the Emirates sold out for a WSL match as Arsenal hosted Manchester United in front of 60,160 people.

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Rachel Kundananji broke the women’s transfer record fee as she made the move from Madrid CFF to Bay FC, just weeks after it was broken by Chelsea’s Mayra Ramirez.

And an exciting new TV deal is on the horizon which could see now WSL matches staged on Friday and Saturday evenings.

But as attendances are smashed, transfer records are broken and broadcast deals are made, a disheartening development is now threatening to overshadow this period of exponential growth.

Next year, Switzerland will host Euro 2025 as the Lionesses attempt to defend their title on foreign soil.

But the decision has been taken by the Federal Council of Switzerland to cut funding for the tournament next year by over 70 per cent.

Instead of the initial 15 million Francs that was pledged, they are now set to give just four million Francs for the running of the tournament.

Those four million Francs will have to be split across no less than eight host cities in Switzerland.

To put that into context, if the budget were to be split equally between all the cities then each of them would receive only around £450,000 for the entire tournament.

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Given that their bid was only successful on the premise of their initial investment, the reduction is disappointing.

But former Lioness Lianne Sanderson told talkSPORT that the reduced budget was an indiciation of just how far women’s football still had to progress.

She was asked on talkSPORT’s Kick-Off show whether she thought Switzerland should still be hosting the prestigious tournament in light of the cuts.

She replied: “No, but it’s hard because at this point in time it will be hard to change where the tournament is being held.

“But I think it’s a realisation: we’re in 2024, but there’s still a lot that needs to be done in the women’s game. We often get carried away with how amazing it is, where it’s got to but there’s still more that needs to be done and this is an example of that. 

“It’s so disappointing, the fact that it’s not just a few million, it’s literally cut 70 per cent of the budget. For it to be happening at this point in time, it’s disappointing but it’s also a realisation.

“We often talk about how amazing the Lionesses are and how well they’re doing, which they are, but there’s other nations. There’s Nigeria, there’s Jamaica, there are other teams who are just not getting paid and they’re just turning up for their countries realistically just because of the love of the game.

“These things are real and they’re happening and it shouldn’t be allowed to happen because if it was in the men’s game, it wouldn’t happen.

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Jamaica Women took the world by storm, making it to the knockouts despite having had to crowdfund their way to the World Cup[/caption]

“And I know the men’s game brings in more revenue, but this can’t be happening.”

But the Swiss Federal Council are making the grave mistake of not learning from the lessons of history.

They only have to look back three years to the last Euros to understand what they could miss out on by failing to properly organise and fund this competition.

There is no arguing with the statistics from UEFA’s post-tournament flash impact report from England’s Euro 2022.

They found the host cities received a £81m boost in economic activity as a result of the tournament, and that the total spectator spending from matches amounted to an additional £44m.

And the developments were not merely financial: UEFA also found that 85 per cent of spectators were likely to attend professional international and domestic women’s football events again in the future.

It was a tournament which changed the hearts and minds of many and the legacy has had wide-reaching repercussions for the WSL and for grassroots football too.

Indeed, Euro 2022 created over 400,000 new opportunities for women to engage in grassroots football.

With the chance of such a marked financial gain, withholding 11 million Francs seems a misguided decision.

Not to mention the possibilities for the success of the Swiss women’s national team on home soil.

Currently ranked 22nd in the world, Switzerland have perhaps not performed as well as they could have done in recent years given some of their talent.

Before Euro 2022, the Lionesses were ranked eighth in the world in the FIFA rankings – after it, they shot up to fourth.

A similar rise for Switzerland in the wake of a successful run could change the face of women’s football in the country forever.

The Swiss team boast the talented likes of Arsenal‘s Lia Walti, PSG’s Ramona Bachmann and Aston Villa’s Alisha Lehmann and Noella Maritz – to name just a few.

And the effect that a home tournament can have on teams was demonstrated well at the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

New Zealand and Australia both shone in front of their home fans: the former picked up their first ever World Cup victory in their opening game and the latter made it all the way to the semi-finals before being knocked out by England.

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A well-funded Euro 2025 might give Switzerland their ‘moment’.

It was a ‘moment’ that Chloe Kelly and the Lionesses gave to their own nation at Wembley Stadium on that fateful day two years ago.

You can tune into talkSPORT’s Women’s Football Show on Mondays from 7pm on talkSPORT 2.