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Valloni / News  / WOMEN’S FOOTBALL IN FRANCE
13 February 2025

WOMEN’S FOOTBALL IN FRANCE

Women’s professional football in Europe, and elsewhere in the world, continues to grow in popularity and attract more fans, and this is also true in France.

Women’s football in France is run by the French Football Federation (FFF) and played at the club and national levels.

The top League is the Premiere Ligue, which was founded in 1975 as an Amateur League and became a Professional one in 2009, and the top three clubs play in the UEFA Women’s Champions League.

The winners of the League are crowned Champions of France.

The French National Women’s Football Team, known as ‘The Blues’ (‘Les Bleues’), played their first official international match against The Netherlands in 1971.  The Blues play in the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the UEFA Women’s Euro, the Summer Olympics and the Algarve Cup. In fact, they have become one of the most consistent women’s football teams in Europe.

There is also a women’s national under-19 football team and a Coupe de France Feminine women’s football competition.

As mentioned, women’s football in France is popular and, in 2019, there were almost 170,000 registered players in France. On 8 March 2024, International Women’s Day, the FFF announced that a record 247,160 licences had been issued to female players. This increase reflects the growing popularity of women’s football in France. In addition, more than 3 000 clubs now host women’s teams, demonstrating a clear expansion of opportunities at the local level.

Also, 53% of fans of women’s football, in general, have developed their interest in the game in the last three years. Women’s football is increasingly popular amongst 18-24-year-olds. Also, sponsorship of women’s football is on the increase, with many leading brands, including the credit card company VISA, which recognise the power and attraction of the women’s game. Furthermore, more women’s games, in general, are being played in bigger stadiums and thus attracting more broadcast coverage of them. Also, the number of Internet searches in 2024 for the UEFA Women’s Champions League was the highest for five years.

In October 2024, the French women’s national team and the FFF signed an agreement governing the management and use of their collective and individual image rights. This agreement echoes the one negotiated a year earlier between the FFF and the Les Bleus men’s national team. Under this new agreement, the women players can now use their image individually with external partners, whilst the FFF retains the right to use Les Bleues’ image for sponsorship campaigns. To ensure that the agreement is properly applied, a monitoring committee has been set up, made up of representatives of the players, the Chairman and CEO of the FFF and members of the National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP).

The FFF has also launched a comprehensive action plan to restructure and elevate elite women’s football in France. This plan includes the reform of the national women’s competition pyramid; the introduction of a final phase for the D1 Arkema championship; the introduction of three licence levels for clubs; the opening of approved training centres for young players; and the creation of a dedicated women’s football league.

These initiatives aim to professionalise the competitive structure of women’s football in France, ensuring that female players have the same opportunities for development and success as their male counterparts.

However, although Article L3221-2 of the French Labour Code stipulates that all employers must ensure equal pay for men and women for the same work or for work of equal value, the average pay for women football players in France is relatively low compared with that of the men, and many women football players suffer prejudice and other forms of discrimination in their daily professional lives.

Also, there is a continuing need, in general, to promote women’s sports, including football, on radio and television and provide more broadcast coverage of them.

So, women’s football in France may be described as a work in progress but heading in the right direction!

For further information, advice and legal representation of women football players and clubs in France, please email Dr Estelle Ivanova, the Head of our French Desk, at ‘ivanova@valloni.ch’.