DAZN removes paywall on women’s football including the Champions League to encourage growth

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British sports streaming service DAZN revealed its decision to cancel the subscription fee for women’s football content throughout the remaining 2023-24 season in the UK, in order to help promote the women’s game.

Its New Deal for Women’s Football campaign has been introduced to help boost investment and make the women’s game financially sustainable.

The New Deal campaign is calling for clubs, sponsors, media and broadcasters and rights holders to get involved and come together to build a major global commercial sport.

The original strategy that was outlined in the agreement was that in the initial two years of the broadcast deal (21/22 & 22/23 seasons), where all 61 matches were available for free viewing.

Then in the 2023/24 season it moved to a subscription-based model, locking out fans from being able to view the games live on DAZN or its YouTube channel for free.

This announcement affects all Women’s Champions League matches, as well as the Women’s leagues in Spain, Germany, France, Italy, and Saudi Arabia, which will now be accessible without cost.

This means the remaining 29 Champions League matches, 48 Liga F matches, 48 in Frauen Bundesliga, 15 Saudi Women’s league and 50 in the Italian Serie A Femminile will be broadcast for free in the UK.

DAZN released a statement last Thursday that mentioned the reason why the streaming company decided to make the games free.

“This will drive audience growth and provide a new global home for women’s football, offering greater access to games, content and the international women’s football community,” confirming that the decision is part of its new campaign to “ensure a commercially robust future for women’s football.”

DAZN’s co-CEO of women’s sport, Hannah Brown explained what this move means for the future of the sport.

“The women’s game has significant commercial potential,” she said in a statement.

“Without it [the New Deal campaign] a golden opportunity to accelerate growth is lost.”

The numbers released by DAZN since the start of their partnership agreement with the Women’s CL also suggest that there is a magnification on women’s football.

In the competition’s inaugural broadcast year for the 2021/22 final they got 3.6 million in global viewership and a cumulative viewership of 64 million. This went up to 5.1 million for the 22/23 final and an 87 million cumulative global viewership total.

The decision to make women’s football accessible is the right one at the expense of money earned through subscriptions. The best way to grow the sport is to maintain a healthy audience and to not restrict women’s football from the masses in its time of extreme growth.

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Project ACL: The initiative leading the way on injury research

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Launched in 2024, the research project recently welcomed two US-based organisations: the National Women’s Soccer League Players Association (NWSLPA) and National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).

 

About Project ACL

Led by FIFPRO, PFA England, Nike and Leeds Beckett University, Project ACL aims to research ACL injuries and understand more about multifactorial risk factors.

After piloting in England’s Women’s Super League (WSL), Project ACL will expand to the NWSL in the US, reflecting the global importance of the project’s research and outcome.

“We are incredibly excited to bring the NWSLPA and NWSL to Project ACL,” said Director of Women’s Football at FIFPRO, Dr. Alex Culvin, via official press release.

“Overall, we believe that player-centricity and collaboration with key stakeholders are central to establishing meaningful change in the soccer ecosystem and that players, competition organisers and stakeholdersaround the world will benefit from Project ACL’s outputs and outcomes.”

Interviews with over 30 players and team surveys across all 12 WSL clubs provided the project’s research team with valuable information about current prevention strategies and available resources.

Furthermore, the project tracks player workload and busy schedule periods during the season through the FIFPRO Player Workload Monitoring tool, therefore gaining insights into the link between scheduling and injury risks.

 

Looking to the data

Project ACL’s partnerships with the WSL – and now the NWSL – are immensely valuable for the future of player welfare in women’s football.

Although ACL injuries affect both male and female athletes, they are twice as likely to occur in women than men. However, according to the NWSL, as little as 8% of sports science research focuses on female athletes.

In Australia, several CommBank Matildas suffered ACL injuries in recent years: Sam Kerr was sidelined from January 2024 to September 2025, Ellie Carpenter for 8 months after suffering the injury while playing for Olympique Lyonnais, and Holly McNamara came back from three ACL’s aged 15, 18 and 20.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The 2025/26 ALW season saw several ACL incidents, including four in just two weeks.

 

Research, prevent, protect

Injury prevention and research are vital to sport – whether professional or amateur.

But when the numbers are so shocking – and incidents are so common – governing bodies must remember that player welfare comes above all else. Research can inform prevention strategies. Prevention means players can enjoy the game they love.

The work of Project ACL, continuing until 2027, will hopefully protect countless players across women’s football from suffering long-term or recurring injuries.

South Canberra FC Breaks the Mold: Equity-Driven Model Earns ‘Club Changer’ Honour

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South Canberra Football Club has been named Club Changer of the Month for April, in a recognition that reflects a broader shift across Australian football toward rewarding clubs that are actively dismantling the structural barriers limiting women’s access to the game.

The AFC Women’s Asian Cup has just delivered record crowds and unprecedented visibility for women’s football in Australia, and the Club Changer program is now asking what comes next. Its decision to name South Canberra Football Club as Club Changer of the Month for April signals a clear shift in how the program defines contribution: away from participation numbers alone, and toward the equity frameworks that determine whether women stay in the game once they arrive.

South Canberra FC built that framework from the ground up. Established in 2021, the club set out to give women and female-identifying players a safe, inclusive environment to play football at any level. It runs entirely on volunteers, operates as a not-for-profit, and is governed by an all-female committee with 13 of its 14 coaches identifying as female.

 

Building the infrastructure of inclusion

In 2026, the club secured grant funding and put it to work immediately. Two coaches are completing their C Licence qualification, and ten coaches, players and community members have undertaken the Foundations of Football course, which directly tackles the cost and accessibility barriers that exclude women out of coaching pathways.

The club also commissioned a female-specific strength and conditioning program with sports physiotherapists ahead of the 2026 season, targeting injury prevention and explicitly supporting players returning after childbirth.

SCFC’s leadership team draws from LGBTIQ+ individuals, First Nations people and veterans, strengthening the club’s connection to the communities it was built to represent.

The Club Changer program is backing clubs that do this work- clubs that treat equity as infrastructure rather than aspiration. At a moment when Australian football is under pressure to turn its biggest-ever surge of women’s interest into something lasting, SCFC’s model offers a clear answer to the question of how.

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