AFC continue #ItsMyGame campaign following 2019 Asian Cup

After a successful campaigning stint during the 2019 Asian Cup earlier this year, the AFC is pushing on with the goal of raising awareness for women who both work and play in the soccer industry.


With the Women’s World Cup only just finishing up, now is an ideal time for the AFC to reach out to as many people as possible.

It’s also notable that this media release has come during a time when USNWT captain Megan Rapinoe has been in the news promoting the women’s game. Many people have been lauding her and her opinions, but there is still a large contingent who don’t appear to be moving with the times.

Rapinoe has been making serious headlines and with this in mind, the AFC clearly want to generate more positive news when so many people still feel the need to negatively influence the women’s game.

The AFC’s media release from Monday night can be found in full below:

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) continues the “It’s My Game” campaign which celebrates the role of women working in football. In the latest segment, the AFC focuses on Svetlana Kashuba of Kyrgyz Republic and how she plans to shape women’s football.

Kashuba enjoyed a notable playing career for Kyrgyz Republic and after hanging up her boots, she is now striving to make a difference in the sport as the women’s football manager in her country.

Respected by her peers and looked up to by young female footballers, Kashuba rose through the ranks by representing her national team in the U-16 and U-19 women’s competitions before playing at the club level in Kyrgyz Republic.

She looks back fondly at how she started playing football and the memories serve as a reminder of how important her current position is.

“I walked with a friend from school and she told me that neighboring stadiums had football trainings only for girls. I was very interested because I could express myself by playing with other girls.

“Before that, I only played with boys. I was always the only girl among them, so I wanted to go and see women’s football. When I saw only girls playing, it motivated me even more.

“I joined the training and with the very first kick I hit the crossbar! The coach told me, ‘You will play and train with us.’ That inspired me because it was my dream to find a place where I could show my potential,” Kashuba recalled.

She is delighted to see how women’s football has developed over the years and hopes the momentum will continue.

“Looking at the girls now, I can see that they play football with more enthusiasm and the number of girls playing the sport is steadily growing. More and more girls are playing football in schools and we have more women’s teams. We are very happy to see so many women’s teams taking part in competitions at a very young age.”

Kashuba believes that women have a huge role to play in football and hopes more will join her and make a career in the sport as a result of the “It’s My Game” campaign – which has reached more than 800,000 fans so far and have received more than 300,000 views on the AFC’s digital platforms.

“Football is not just a game, it is our life and we must prove to ourselves and those around us that we can be successful. I hope that we will see more participation of women not only on the field but also in senior positions in the future,” she said.

To watch the full video, please click here.

AFC #ItsMyGame statistics so far:

Facebook: 351,949 impressions, 251,153 Reach, 51,732 video views
Twitter: 193,176 impressions, 24,663 video views
LinkedIn: 25,032 impressions, 3,732 video views
Instagram: 500,362 reach, 236,922 video views

*ENDS*

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Spain’s Liga F receives history-making investment into women’s football

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Image credit: Liga F

The deal, worth AUD 91 million (€55 million) across four seasons, represents a monumental investment into Liga F and women’s football by Gasol16 Ventures and Fortified Partners.

 

Setting the pace

The investment comes as a hugely signficant moment in the history of women’s football not just in Spain, but across Europe.

But, given Spain’s commitment to growing the women’s game in recent years (and the world-beating teams it produces as a result), it is hardly a surprise that Liga F is at the centre of this milestone.

In the 2024-25 season, Liga F distributed AUD 28 million to its clubs, as well as doubling television audiences across two years.

The rate of growth is astounding, and shows no signs of slowing down.

“Women’s football in Spain has made a spectacular leap in recent years: audiences have almost doubled in two seasons, and stadiums are incresingly full,” explained Founder and President of Gasol16 Ventures, Pau Gasol.

“Therefore, this is not a sentimental commitment to women’s sport. It is an investment decision based on data, market trends, and the conviction that women’s football represents a growth opportunity with enormous potential for value creation.”

Thus, Gasol’s motivation reveals much about his own reasons for investing, as well as about the current status of women’s football in Spain.

The landscape does not want, or need, sentimental commitment. It is a financial and sporting powerhouse in its own right, and one which can grow to new heights year-on-year.

 

Securing a successful future

Furthermore, the long-term nature of the deal (set for the next four seasons from the 2026-27 campaign) shows vision and ambition for what the league can become.

“This agreement allows us to look further ahead and equip ourselves with the necessary tools to continue building an increasingly strong, more competitive league with greater capacity to generate value for our clubs,” outlined President of Liga F Beatriz Álvarez Mesa.

“What excites me most about this alliance is not just the investment it brings, but the message it sends: there are people and institutions who believe in the potential of Liga F and want to be part of its growth.”

 

Final thoughts

This is in stark contrast to the current situation of the A League Women in Australia, which PFA Chief Executive Beua Busch described as at a “tipping point”.

The problems remain the same as they were several years ago. Investment, player satisfaction and attendances are well below other major leagues. The key is creating a product which presents the immense value of clubs, players and commercial opportunities.

Because when intentional investment comes, the question stops being ‘who will invest?’ but ‘who wouldn’t?’ .

How Australian Support for the World Cup Has Changed Since 2022

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Federation Square 2022; Image Credit: AFR

Sodden, rowdy and 7,000-strong, the crowd that gathered at Federation Square before dawn on Saturday for Australia’s clash with the United States offered a vivid illustration of how much, and how little, has changed in Australian football support since Qatar 2022.

The scenes themselves were familiar: fans queuing from 2am, flares lit during the anthem, a barrier breach as the precinct hit capacity within minutes of opening. But the fact the screening happened at all says something about the shifting institutional weight football now carries in Australia.

Just this May, the Melbourne’s Arts Precinct had decided not to screen Socceroos matches at Fed Square this tournament, citing crowd damage and arrests during a 2022 World Cup screening. Football Australia publicly pushed back, and the Victorian Government ultimately overturned the decision, with security and police presence increased to manage the risk. That a state government intervened to guarantee a public screening reflects how central these gatherings have become to football’s standing in Australia, not just as a peripheral fan event but a piece of cultural infrastructure worth a premier’s political capital.

A Tournament Inherited, Not Just Attended

The scale of public interest now sits on a different foundation than it did in 2022. Football Australia’s most recent National Participation Report recorded an 11% increase in total participation to 1,911,539 people, with women and girls’ participation rising 16% to 221,436. Industry analysis attributes much of that growth to the “Matildas effect” following the home Women’s World Cup in 2023, projecting 407,000 new junior participants by 2027 on the back of that tournament and Football Australia’s broader infrastructure strategy. Whatever happens to the Socceroos in the United States, the crowd at Fed Square this year is drawn from a participation base substantially larger than the one watching from lounge rooms and pubs in Qatar.

That shift shows up in how fans say they’ll engage with this tournament regardless of results. New industry research found 79% of intended Australian viewers plan to keep watching the World Cup even if the Socceroos are eliminated, an 11-point increase on 2022, suggesting interest is becoming less tied to the national team’s results than it once was. The same research found television remains dominant, with 88% of viewers planning to watch on TV, rising above 90 per cent for evening and weekend matches, even as audiences increasingly split their attention across streaming and second screens.

Crowd Behaviour as the Unresolved Question

What hasn’t shifted is the tension over crowd conduct at public screenings, and what it costs football’s civic standing when things go wrong. The Melbourne Arts Precinct’s chief executive was explicit in 2026 that damage and behaviour during 2022 screenings were the basis for initially declining to host watch parties this time, despite trouble-free crowds during the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

Saturday’s flares and barrier breach will likely feed that same debate going into the knockout stages, even as the broader numbers tell a story of a sport with a far deeper public footing than it had four years ago. The Fed Square images from 2022 prompted other Australian cities to scramble together live sites once the Socceroos reached the knockout rounds, reflecting a pattern likely to repeat if Australia progresses from Group D, with Friday’s match against Paraguay now carrying outsized weight for a campaign that began with what fans, by their own description, considered horrible refereeing and a result short of expectations.

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