Stadiums of the Women's Game
The rapid growth of women's football over the past decade has transformed which stadiums host the sport and how large its crowds can be. Matches that were once played at small club training grounds now fill some of the largest stadiums in the world, and the attendance records of the women's game have been rewritten repeatedly. This article looks at the grounds central to women's football's rise. The venues are on the map.
The Camp Nou record
The defining moment in women's football attendance came at Spotify Camp Nou in March 2022, when 91,648 spectators watched FC Barcelona's women face Real Madrid in a Champions League quarter-final — a world record for a women's club match. Barcelona broke their own record weeks later against Wolfsburg. The matches demonstrated that, given a big stage and promotion, women's football could fill Europe's largest stadium, reshaping expectations across the game.
Wembley and the 2022 Euros
England's victory at the UEFA Women's Euro 2022, on home soil, was watched by a record 87,192 at Wembley Stadium for the final against Germany — the highest attendance for any European Championship final, men's or women's. The tournament's strong crowds across English grounds, and the Lionesses' triumph, are widely credited with accelerating the growth of the women's game in England and beyond, and with normalising the use of major stadiums for women's matches.
World Cup stadiums
The FIFA Women's World Cup has increasingly used major stadiums. The 2023 tournament, co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, set overall attendance records and filled large grounds including Stadium Australia (Accor Stadium) in Sydney for the final, watched by more than 75,000. The 2019 tournament in France used grounds such as the Parc Olympique Lyonnais. The trend is toward larger venues as demand for the women's game grows.
Purpose-built and dedicated grounds
Alongside the use of major men's stadiums, the women's game has begun to acquire dedicated facilities. Clubs increasingly play women's fixtures at their main stadiums rather than smaller training grounds, and some have invested in purpose-built women's facilities. The decision about where to stage women's matches — the big main stadium for occasion and capacity, or a smaller ground for atmosphere and cost — is an ongoing strategic question for clubs across Europe and beyond.
The United States and college soccer
The United States has the deepest-rooted women's football culture, built on the success of the national team and a strong college and professional system. The NWSL plays in a range of grounds, and some clubs have built dedicated women's stadiums. US national team matches have long drawn large crowds, and the country's college soccer infrastructure provides a foundation for the women's game that few others match.
Atmosphere and the matchday experience
The women's game has developed a matchday culture often described as more family-friendly and inclusive than parts of the men's game, with strong, vocal support at clubs like Barcelona, Arsenal, Lyon and others. As more matches move to main stadiums, the atmosphere has grown, and the record crowds at Camp Nou and Wembley showed that the women's game can generate occasions comparable to the biggest in the men's game.
The infrastructure challenge
The rapid growth has raised questions about infrastructure. Filling an 80,000-seat stadium for a marquee fixture is now achievable, but sustaining large crowds for routine league matches remains a work in progress, and many women's teams still play at smaller grounds for most fixtures. The balance between aspiration and sustainability — when to use the big stadium and when the smaller one — is the central infrastructure question of the women's game.
Explore on the map
The great grounds of women's football — Camp Nou, Wembley, Stadium Australia and the rest — are plotted on the interactive map. Use it to locate the venues that have hosted the record crowds, trace the geography of the women's game's rise, or compare the stadiums used across different countries. The map is the clearest way to see where women's football is filling the world's biggest grounds.