Lionesses Outstanding Success Raises the Profile of Women in Sport – and Highlights the Abuse Faced by Women

The England women’s football team have had another highly successful campaign in the Euros. However, a closer look at the reaction to the tournament reveals the elements that feed into how high-profile women are judged, and how those attitudes are reflected in the domestic abuse that many women suffer, particularly during and after big sporting tournaments.

Lionesses Reach the Euros Final

The England women’s football team, the Lionesses, have had another highly successful campaign in the 2025 European championships (Euros) in Switzerland this summer. Along with winning the Euros in England in 2022, and reaching the final of the World Cup in Australia in 2023, the final against Spain is their third consecutive appearance in a major tournament final under the stewardship of their coach, Sarina Wiegman. Nevertheless, along with all the euphoria of their run to the final, concerning undercurrents have dogged the squad throughout the tournament.

Some of these undercurrents, like the racist insults aimed at Jess Carter over social media, or the general abuse and dissatisfaction with the team and coach when things haven’t gone to plan on the pitch, often simply replicate how sections of the football-watching public react to the national team, whether that’s the women’s team or the men’s team. In 2021, for example, when the men’s team lost the Euros final, the abuse of the three players who missed penalties in the shootout – Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho – may have started out as being fuelled by disappointment at the result, but soon pivoted to focusing on their ethnic heritage, as with Jess Carter in 2025.

However, a closer look at that tournament and the reaction to it reveals other elements at play that feed into how high-profile women – in sport and other walks of life – are judged, and how those attitudes in turn are reflected in the abuse that many women in their normal everyday lives suffer, particularly during and after big sporting tournaments.

Mens Football and Domestic Abuse

One sobering and well-documented truth is that when an England men’s football team plays in a big international tournament there

tends to be a spike in the incidence of domestic abuse. One study showed an increase in reports of domestic abuse related to the England men’s teams appearances in the World Cup, with a 26% rise after victories and a 38% rise after defeats (Kirby 2012).

A Colombian study reported increases of up to 48% in intimate partner violence in relation to football tournaments, Kirby and Birdsall (2021) showing that this issue is likely to be a global phenomenon. Nevertheless, in relation to the UK, it is clear that this is an ongoing issue; two studies by Trendl et al. (2020a, 2020b) showed a 47% increase in alcohol-related domestic abuse following England’s victories, while a systematic summary by Forsdike et al. (2022) found post-event increases in domestic abuse ranging from 20-50% over a number of studies.

It's also clear that much of the elevated level of abuse takes place in the aftermath of matches rather than during them. Ivandic et al. (2024) observe that the abuse tends to peak around ten hours after the completion of the match, particularly among those who are alcohol-intoxicated. Sharon Bryan of the National Centre for Domestic Violence (NCDV) – and a domestic abusive survivor herself – said in an interview with the Metro newspaper in July 2021:

‘I have worked for 23 years on the “front line” of domestic abuse and violence and, in my experience, when there is a major football tournament or any other major sporting event, it takes a few days for the calls to begin coming in. This is because victims of domestic abuse generally wait until “the storm has passed” before they reach out for help. In the immediate aftermath of a domestically abusive incident, the victim is left feeling terrified, shocked and confused and quite possibly injured.  It is quite normal to wait until things have “gone back to normal” and then call for advice or help.’

This is reinforced by research carried out by the Family Law solicitors Higgs LLP which found that Google searches for the term ‘domestic violence hotline’ increased by 80% between 30^th June and 30^th July 2021, a timescale straddling the period before and after the final of the men’s Euros final between England and Italy on 11^th July 2021.

The Changing Profile of Womens Football

So far, there has been little research into whether and how much domestic abuse increases in relation to women’s football tournaments involving England. This is partly a result of the fact that while the men’s game has been an established feature of life in this country for well over a hundred years, the women’s game – which had begun to flourish in the early twentieth century – was maginalised, shunned and actively discouraged for many years. Its rebirth in the latter part of the century was a slow and painful process, with little support or encouragement from footballing bodies, the media and the established men’s clubs at that time. Although bigger strides were being made in developing and promoting women’s football in parts of mainland Europe, North American and east Asia it was slower to become established here.

Jill Scott, one of the Lionesses squad who retired from football after helping England win the women’s Euros in 2022, recalled that in her early years as a young footballer she still had to pay to play. Lucy Bronze, a vastly experienced and much-decorated member of the current squad, remembered having to play for boys’ teams as a child because there wasn’t the opportunity to play in competitive girls’ football leagues. The English Women’s Super League (WSL) has enabled players to become professional, improve their conditions and develop their skills, and this is reflected in the improved performance and visibility of the national team. Nevertheless, until 2022 support for and knowledge of the Lionesses and their progress was still probably limited to a relatively small number of people in this country.

Hosting the women’s Euros in England in 2022 changed that significantly. Excitement and interest grew with the England team’s journey to the final, which was watched in Wembley Stadium by a crowd of 87,192 – bigger than that for the men’s final the previous year. A wave of positivity developed to the very different sound of a huge crowd dominated by women’s voices and women’s passion. A total of 17.4 million people watched the game on TV in the UK, part of a global audience of 50 million, while the total global audience for the tournament was estimated at 365 million. The day after lifting the trophy, the triumphant Lionesses were presented to a large cheering crowd in Trafalgar Square. It was evident that a tipping point had been reached in how the women’s game in England was perceived.

The Struggle for Equality

Three years on, there are concerns that although things are going well at the elite level, there is still not enough support for the grassroots game for girls, particularly in their later teenage years when they face societal, peer group and social media pressure to look and behave in certain ways which often aren’t conducive to developing their footballing prowess. This is a crucial age when self-esteem, activity and social engagement can make the difference between a girl finding the confidence to stand up to abuse and tolerating it. Girls also report feeling discouraged from playing on football pitches where there is no easy access to changing or toilet facilities, particularly while they’re on their period. And while dreaming of one day becoming one of the Lionesses themselves, they witness the abuse that can happen to some of the highly successful, talented women who are.

A case in point is goalkeeper Mary Earps, a star of the 2022 campaign whose heroics weren’t quite enough for England to follow their Euros win with a World Cup success in Australia a year later. Nevertheless, she was voted the BBC’s 2023 Sports Personality of the Year, which was immediately followed by a backlash against this outcome led by journalist and manosphere mouthpiece Piers Morgan. Her choice to retire from international football just prior to the 2025 Euros prompted another outpouring of outrage from similar sources.

Has the broadening of the audience for women’s football changed the behaviour of commentators? In 2022, the majority of those following women’s football were girls and women; boys and men attending matches or following the games were those most likely to hold progressive views about the women’s game, or to have family or friendship connections to female footballers. In other words, the male presence in football was a largely positive and supportive one, as I witnessed myself when attending the 2015 women’s FA Cup Final at Wembley with my wife, my daughter and her friend.

The supporters now including a large number of men; many are open-minded, wanting to enjoy the game and see it improve, but some come with a different agenda. Comments on the BBC Sport website in the course of the 2025 Euros have included those from men wanting to decry or discredit the women’s game, criticise the quality of the play and the skill of the players, often comparing it unfavourably with the men’s game. For these men, it seems that it’s important to emphasise the perceived inferiority of women’s football compared with men’s football, to use it as evidence that women will never be as good as men. Until very recently, when talking about aggressive or violent tackles in the men’s game, commentators and pundits would routinely trot out the phrase ‘it’s a man’s game’ as justification for the aggression. The implications of this were that only men should play the game, but more worryingly, that violence was to be expected if men were involved.

What Next for Women's Football?

So where does that leave us in 2025? The success of the Lionesses, and the growth of the game overall globally, have left women’s football in a position of prominence most female footballers could hardly have dreamt of even 10 years ago, when a young Lucy Bronze was helping England finish third in the World Cup in Canada. But with that greater attention has come greater challenge, the players now getting the kind of attention other high-profile women routinely have to deal with, being endlessly judged and criticised on social media not only for their talents but also for what they say and do outside football, their appearance and behaviour. This is, of course, a societal problem that all girls and women face, with the extreme end of it represented by toxic masculinity, abuse and violence.

What still remains to be seen is whether there will be as similar spike in cases of domestic violence and abuse as some abusers who have become invested in women’s football react to England’s progress in the same way that they do to the men’s team. The next few weeks may start to provide the answers to that.

References and resources

DVACT-PAI Blog post: Will the World Cup Cause a Rise in Domestic Violence? https://www.dvact.org/post/will-the-world-cup-cause-a-rise-in-domestic-violence

Blog Post: The link between England football victories and the recorded increase in alcohol-related domestic abuse is likely to be causal - https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/england-football-alcohol-domestic-violence/

News article: World Cup fears after spike in Euros domestic abuse - https://www.swlondoner.co.uk/news/07062022-world-cup-fears-after-spike-in-euros-domestic-abuse

Campaign post: NSPCC Children face greater risk of domestic abuse during World Cup - https://www.nspcc.org.uk/about-us/news-opinion/2022/children-face-greater-risk-of-domestic-abuse-during-world-cup/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Children%20face%20greater%20risk%20of%20domestic%20abuse%20during%20World%20Cup&utm_campaign=20221121_KIS_CASPAR_November21

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