Barcelona showing how investment in women’s sport reaps rewards

There was a world record attendance of 91,553 in the Camp Nou to watch FC Barcelona Femení beat Real Madrid Femenino 5-2 in the Champions League quarter-final last week.

For context, Barcelona’s men’s team have struggled throughout the season to get 75,000, averaging above 50,000 supporters for games.

What happened last Wednesday did not occur overnight. It involved years of meticulous planning and building a new football team. It’s a new football team where, irrespective of gender, it’s identifiable as FC Barcelona.

Originally, the women’s team used to play in the now-demolished Miniestadi, a stone’s throw from the Camp Nou in the city centre, and the average attendance was between 500 and 1,000.

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The Johan Cruyff stadium was built in 2019, and the average there is between 3,000 and 4,000 fans attending.

Twenty one years ago, the newly created Spanish Superliga didn’t want Barcelona near their league due to poor results. Eventually, they were admitted after FC Barcelona officially brought them as an addition to the club. In 2007, Barça were relegated, and ironically enough, substitute on Wednesday night Melanie Serrano was part of the relegated team and then the history makers.

In the summer of 2015, the club became professional, and an idea was put out there: instead of making a women’s club, why not make a professional club playing the Barcelona way in the women’s game? Understandable, given how the legacy of Barcelona is embedded in tiki-taka, fast-paced possession football. If the men didn’t change, women had to be the same.

The team have grown in terms of budget, staff, world-class players and the ability to sell themselves as a unique product away from the men’s game while still relying on the same supporters.

For example, Alexia Putellas’s jersey was the highest-selling shirt on game days last week, shifting more numbers than Pedri, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Ousmane Dembélé and Gerard Piqué. In fact, Putellas’s jersey sales were double that of Pedri, the highest-selling jersey on the men’s team.

The club quadrupled the staff and their efforts. In 2015, year one of professionalism, Barcelona’s head of department was also the head coach. Underneath him was a co-ordinator in charge of the first team (assistant, physio and trainer) and the academy (under-11s up to under-18s and Barcelona B).

The staff has now expanded, including roles such as an additional assistant manager, goalkeeper coach, analyst, team delegate, kit manager, doctors, psychologists, and nutritionists. The academy also got a boost, with coaches per team doubling and more physios, doctors, psychologists, physical trainers, and methodologists offered.

The under-10, under-12 and under-14 girls’ teams also play in boys’ leagues and are the only club in Spain to do this. In fact, the girls’ team has won the boys’ league, and their under-14s are top of the table this year.

This idea is to get players used to training at high intensity to make it easier to adapt when they’re older. Usually, younger teams have three to four training sessions a week, and as they progress, they increase it to five or six sessions.

Additionally, nine academy teenage girls who play with Barcelona B reside in La Masia for the first time in the club’s history. Along with training, they learn nutrition, social media, football and Catalan.

The philosophy was simple: invest in underage and youth structures, build on the talent you have, become the best team and the best players will want to come. That has served Barcelona well.

During Wednesday’s record-breaking game, two academy girls, Aitana Bonmati and Claudia Pina, swung the momentum, scoring goals two and three with beautiful finishes.

For the board and FC Barcelona, this indeed was more than empowerment.

Socios, members of FC Barcelona, were given up to four tickets, with only an administration charge due of €2.50. Twenty four hours later, non-socios were buying tickets for between €9-€15.

There were fears when heavy rain started pouring and wouldn’t stop until the afternoon.

But FC Barcelona had not just a match but an event planned. The ultras behind Gol Nord were ready with their drums, chants, and deafening support. Supporters cheered and whistled, encouraging fans to jump up and down. After all, only Real Madrid fans don’t jump in the Camp Nou.

The club didn’t engage in advertisements or promotion, with Putellas admitting her local barista didn’t know the game was on.

The support that piled into the Camp Nou was, just like the club’s DNA, organic and done the Barcelona way.

Plans are being made for Femení Camp Nou 2.0, this time against Wolfsburg on Friday, April 22nd. Fifty thousand tickets have been snapped up by socios, with general release figures still to be revealed.

What is certain is another football fiesta is on the way. What is also certain is if you invest in women the correct way, you will reap the rewards.