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Business Daily

How to start a women's pro-football team

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4796 Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The founders of Dutch women's team Hera United are finalising preparations for their first ever season in the Netherlands' top flight.

They're the first women's-only professional team in the country, and want to drive the development of the sport by stepping out of the traditional male dominated club format.

We hear from Hera's founders on persuading investors to back them and the impact they're hoping to have on the game as a whole.

We talk to the founder of Glasgow City FC, who followed the same path nearly 30 years ago.

And we hear from the team behind Europe's first women's sports bar, who have taken inspiration from Hera's journey.

Produced and presented by Matthew Kenyon

(Image: The Her United team. Credit: Hera United)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

It's Business Daily from the BBC with Matthew Kenyon.

0:05.2

Women's football is dominating the sporting agenda at the moment.

0:09.1

In the coming days, international champions will be crowned in both Africa and Europe.

0:15.1

But soon it'll be back to the club game,

0:18.0

where women's teams must compete for attention and investment with the men.

0:23.2

For some entrepreneurs, it's time for change.

0:26.4

If we can change the atmosphere, the ambition, the money and the attention and the love to female football,

0:33.1

I truly believe that it could skyrocket.

0:35.4

Which is why a new professional women's football club is being launched in the Netherlands

0:40.3

for the coming domestic season, a new name aiming to capture an untapped market.

0:46.5

It's a road that some have travelled before, but not many.

0:50.6

Very few did what we done, which is start a club from scratch, go to all that effort

0:56.2

of, you know, how do you begin a football club? It's blooming hard work. What does it take and

1:01.1

is it already having an impact? When we saw this, then we thought, oh, okay, if they can do it,

1:07.4

we can do it, not the same thing, but in a similar vibe, in a similar way.

1:11.0

And yeah, well, here we are. That's Business Daily from the BBC.

1:16.6

I'm in a bar in Rotterdam surrounded by football fans. It is, in some ways, the traditional

1:22.7

Dutch sporting experience. Everyone's decked out in orange. the beer is flowing and there's a buzzing atmosphere

1:29.5

as everyone waits to see if the national team can secure further progress in the current

1:35.6

women's European championship. This is Barlaney. It's named after the first woman to score

1:42.1

an international goal for the Netherlands,

1:44.3

and she's sitting over there, actually,

...

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