This commentary offers an analysis of the implications of Covid-19 on the future of elite women's football, with the intention of reflecting on and illuminating the threat and uncertainty facing the game. Topics covered include (1) organisational and economic repercussions; (2) consequences for player contracts, migration and investment; and (3) player wellbeing. These significant challenges require swift and decisive action in order to mitigate their potential effects. Recommendations are made for governing bodies, parent clubs and practitioners, in addition to possible future research directions for academics. We reflect upon what can be done during and postpandemic to continue the momentum and growth of women's football in England, highlighting the need for football clubs to learn from previous crises by embracing innovation and entrepreneurship.

This article examines English print media coverage of the England national women's football (soccer) team during the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup. It draws on a content analysis of five English national newspapers from 24 May to 14 August 2015. A wide body of research has demonstrated that women's sport continues to be greatly underrepresented in the media but our findings are important as they demonstrate that during this tournament, women's football received a significant amount of print media coverage and that this coverage was largely positive. We argue that we have entered a new age of media coverage of women's sport in the UK, with a shift towards greater gender equality.

The experiences of female sports fans have been largely marginalized in academic research. This article aims to bring women’s experiences as sports fans to the fore. It also explores assumptions of homogeneity which seem to underlie much research on male and female fans. This has perhaps led to a gendered binary whereby female sports fans are often depicted as ‘new consumer’ fans and are perceived as ‘inauthentic’ in their support. Drawing on Glaser and Strauss’s (2008) ‘grounded theory’ approach, 51 semi-structured interviews were conducted with female football fans in the East Midlands city of Leicester in England. This article focuses on two themes which emerged from this research: women, football and a sense of place; and women and stadium modernization. These findings begin to explore some of the complexities of female fan attachment and emphasize the need to examine the diversity of women’s experiences as sports fans. I propose that future research on sports fandom would benefit from a greater sensitivity to heterogeneity in both men’s and women’s experiences.

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