At the dawn of the 2025 female Euro, which opened in Switzerland under the spotlight from an unprecedented craze, a nation is distinguished as much by its renewal as by its inverted trajectory between its two flagship selections: Italy. While the male Nazional has experienced a series of disillusions-non-qualification for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, early elimination at Euro 2024-the female Squadra Azzurra, it climbed the ladder at full speed. Under the leadership of Andrea Soncin, named coach in 2023 after a remarkable course with the U23, female Italy qualified for this euro by posting new solidity and ambition. In his list unveiled in early July, we find a framework mixing experience and youth: Cristiana Girelli (Juventus), still decisive at 34, Captain Elisa Bartoli (Roma), the promising Chiara Beccari (Sassuolo) or the defender Elena Linari (Atlético Madrid), one of the rare expatriates in a selection now dominated by professional clubs.
This Italian paradox – a booming female team in a country where football remains deeply masculine – constitutes the heart of a broader phenomenon. Where men no longer manage to convince or federate, women have been able to create a new story, conquering, modern, supported by invested clubs, active sponsors and an increasingly faithful audience. Far from being a simple showcase phenomenon, this success is based on solid bases: a now professional league, modernized infrastructure, a pool of young talents in full hatch. The Italy of women's football is no longer to be built: it is already there, and it today embodies a positive counter-model in a European changing landscape. At Euro 2025, it does not arrive as a resigned outsider, but as a credible candidate for a place among the big ones.
Accelerated and funded professionalization
Since July 1ᵉʳ 2022, the Serie A Femminile has become the first fully professional female championship in Italy: each player aged 24 and over now benefits from a minimum annual salary of € 26,664 gross, retirement coverage, maternity and accident identical to that of the male C Serie. This status jump has increased by 60 % of the club payroll, but it was amortized by a parallel increase in revenues: +94 % of federal and government redistributions and +48 % of average income per club between 2021-22 and 2023-24, which today reach € 1.1 million, for budgets close to € 4.4 million. Figc, for its part, injected € 7.6 million into the female sport fund and aims for 50,000 licensees by the end of 2025.
«It is not fair to compare male football and women's football, we should only talk about football. As a coach, it is necessary to take into account the specific characteristics that must be developed and cause. We can make families understand that girls and young women must be supported in their passion, whatever their sex», Analyze the coach Andrea Soncin. On this new economic base, the large stables have changed the gear. Juventus Women has recovered the 2024-25 SCUDETTO – its sixth, after the Cycle of five consecutive titles 2018 – 22 – thanks to the Girelli – CARZI paire and a now 100 % professional workforce. AS Roma, sacred in 2023 and 2024, illustrates the other face of growth: more than € 5 million invested in the female sector alone, a dedicated sponsor – mailot (IBSA) and a scientific staff equivalent to that of men. It was also the Roma which dropped the national influx record: 39,454 spectators at the Olimpico against FC Barcelona on March 21, 2023, a quarter -final of Women's Champions League broadcast in 190 countries.
An unprecedented popular and media craze
Between the 2019-20 and 2023-24 season, the number of Italians declaring themselves “passionate” by women's football has increased from 1 to 7 million – 40 % of the population now following the movement. TV audiences followed: nearly 320,000 average viewers for matches broadcast in clear, more than double compared to 2022, and international rights sold for the first time. In stadiums, the championship attendance doubled in two years, while the institutional digital community exceeds 200,000 subscribers, 24 million video views and 150 million impressions per season. This visibility feeds the business model: sponsors now generate 65 % of direct income and total revenue from the Serie A FEMMinile division have increased by +48 % on the last two years. The solidity of the base followed the same curve. The licensees increased from 18,854 in 2008 to 45,785 at the end of 2024 (or 126 %), and the FIGC has just hoked Italy in the world for the growth in the number of players. “”When this opportunity arose, I jumped at the opportunity. I discovered a magnificent world, made of authentic relationships and pure links, full of determination and an incredible will on the part of incredible girls. It is an area that I did not know, and today, in the current state of things, I would not leave it for nothing in the world. I am deeply grateful to the girls who accompanied us in this adventure. Now I want us to realize our potential“Said coach Andrea Soncin.
The U -15 program, honored with a Grassroots Award UEFA, increased the scout breeder 250 %, massively supplying the selections. Result: in 2025, the Azzurrine U -17 and U -19 qualified together for the European final phase – a performance seen only once before (2018) – and the U -19th rose in the last continental square for the first time in fourteen years. Among the A, the progression is also measured in the FIFA classification: Italy won three rows to point in 14th place at the end of 2023, after hanging the world champion of the world in the League of Nations. So many indicators who confirm that during this Euro 2025 in Switzerland, Italian women's football has never been so armed – on the field as outside. At a time when the ball rides in Switzerland, a certainty is essential: Italian women's football is no longer a promise, but an assertive reality. And if Euro 2025 is only a step, it could well mark the beginning of an era where the Azzurre will become the real ambassadors of Italian football on the international scene.
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