As we celebrate International Women’s Day 2025 (IWD), we thought this was a perfect time to shine a spotlight on women and girls in football throughout Victoria.
Women and girls play an enormous – and growing – role across all aspects of our game. Whether they are playing, coaching, refereeing or working in administration, football simply wouldn’t exist without their valuable contribution.
Football Australia recently released the 2024 National Participation Report, a document outlining the growth of football across the country.
Those numbers tell a very encouraging story, particularly in the women and girls’ space.
Women and girls’ participation increased significantly across Australia with a combined 221,640 participants represented in outdoor, social and registered Futsal. An increase of 16% or 30,894 participants compared to 2023.
In Victoria, over 27,000 women and girls participated in outdoor, registered futsal and social football in 2024, an increase of 20% from 2023.
The number of registered female referees doubled in 2024 and over 1,000 coaches across the sport in 2024 were women and girls.
Off the pitch, 46% of the almost 4,500 volunteers were women and girls.
Interest and the appetite to participate in the sport was at an all-time high leading into 2024, following the monumental impact of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™.
Continuing that momentum and ensuring all women and girls could participate in our game, was a key priority in 2024 for Football Victoria.
While we are thrilled with the progress, our resolve to develop and grow this space further in 2025 is unwavering.
The UN Women Australia official theme for IWD 2025 is “March Forward”, which aims to remind us that progress is not just about reflection, but about taking decisive, bold steps to turn our commitments into action.
We encourage everyone to take a moment today to reflect on the role of women and girls in football. We look forward to continuing the celebrations with Female Football Week, to be held from May 2-11.