Like every young football fan, the dream of every young girl who loves football is to play in her favourite team’s stadium.

Unfortunately, girls in the past generations did not have the chance to regularly play in big stadiums and had to share training grounds with the youth teams for playing their games.

But as women’s football evolve, we started seeing the women teams getting to play in their teams’ stadiums more often in the last few seasons, especially on big occasions and in UEFA Women’s Champions League football.

It is true that this is not the case for all the women’s teams, but, the progress regarding this specific aspect is tangible not only in England, but also in France, Italy, and Spain.

The most remarkable examples that are considered as models for the way they dealt with the playing venue for their women’s team include Arsenal, Brighton, and Everton.

Arsenal Women Playing At The Emirates For a Second Consecutive Season

Arsenal’s decision to play their WSL games at the Emirates stadium for the second consecutive season is an impressive decision that will allow the women’s football fans to watch the team’s games with better quality and in better facilities.

The decision comes following the success of the first season at the Emirates Stadium, knowing that the league phase of the UEFA Women’s Champions League and domestic cup fixtures will continue being played at Meadow Park.

That said, this step represents an encouraging decision from one of the top English teams in women’s football.

This decision should be an example to follow for the rest of the teams, as playing in bigger stadiums would progressively increase the number of fans and help women play in better conditions.

In fact, many other teams have already played in their teams’ official stadiums especially when it comes to UWCL fixtures.

These mainly include Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City.

The issue is that these teams are yet to rely on their teams’ stadiums on a regular basis for WSL fixtures, as they only resort to playing in these stadiums on big occasions.

The same thing applies to women teams in France, Italy, and Spain; big clubs like Olympique Lyonnais, PSG, Juventus, Barcelona, Roma and others still use their academy or youth teams’ stadiums for the women’s football games and only resort to the main stadiums for UWCL fixtures.

Brighton’s Groundbreaking Women’s Stadium Project

Brighton & Hove Albion FC have always been a pioneer regarding the use of stadiums for women’s football and they continue impressing with a completely new idea: Building a purpose-built women's football stadium, for a cost that reaches £75-80m.

Brighton were among the first WSL teams to use the men’s stadiums, in this case the American Express Stadium.

And with the official plan of building a stadium reserved for the women’s team, Brighton confirm that the other teams need to take them as an example to follow in the way they are dealing with women’s football.

The new stadium is expected to become the women’s football permanent home starting from 2030, with an initial capacity of 10,000.

Building this stadium just near the Amex Stadium is also a great idea, making it easier for Brighton fans to follow both the men’s and the women’s teams and have a complete experience.

Everton Women And The New Life Of Goodison Park

Following the change of the men’s team stadium for Goodison Park to the new Hill Dickinson Stadium, the initial plan was to demolish Goodison Park.

But, with the takeover of the Friedkin Group, the final decision was to maintain Goodison Park and use it specifically for the women’s team, re-structuring it to become their official home.

This makes two of the WSL teams using their men’s stadiums on a regular-basis, with the third, Brighton, to have their own women's stadium soon too.

Such important decisions are making the WSL more leading and appealing to players, as well as representing an example to follow for the other leagues in Europe in terms of stadiums use.

It is also true that the NWSL are even more advanced in this regard since most of their women’s teams already share stadiums with the men’s teams, but, the WSL are progressively getting closer to that standard.