Record-breaking EURO 2025 and creating a legacy | OneFootball

The UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 has taken Switzerland by storm, with a new group stage attendance record set over the past two weeks.

A huge 461,582 fans filled stadiums around the country during the 24-match group stage, over 100,000 more than the group stage attendance when the tournament was held in England three years ago.

The next step for the women’s game, in Switzerland and beyond, will be latching onto that interest to create real change from a grassroots level. That exact aim is what has Switzerland legend and two-time Champions League winner Lara Dickenmann excited as an ambassador for Just Eat’s Feed The Game initiative.

“I really like the mission, which is part of my personal mission in football, which is to give more girls access to football and try to retain more girls in the game,” Dickenmann tells OneFootball.

The Feed The Game programme pairs restaurants with local, grassroots football, providing funding, courses, equipment and events for girls who are taking their first steps in the sport.

For too long, including when Dickenmann was forging her own career, there has been a lack of attention, support, and proper funding for women’s football but programmes like Feed The Game show that is changing as the game grows.

“Collaborations are key,” Dickenmann explains. “We’ve tried for a long time within women’s football to bring the game further but we can’t do it alone. Whether it’s politics, media, restaurants, men’s football, federations, everyone needs to come together to move the game further. ALone we can’t get anywhere but together we can.

“For me, Just Eat is a really cool brand that brings positive energy and connects with that football, with women’s football, and right now with the EUROs in my home country. It’s really special to see these connections that we haven’t had before being made, with a cause that is sustainable and lasts longer than (just) the EUROs this summer, building a legacy for the women’s game.”

Legacy is clearly important for Dickenmann as the 135-time Switzerland international watches her home nation host this summer’s tournament so successfully. Things have already changed rapidly over recent years, but support is needed at a grassroots level for that momentum to be harnessed and real, lasting change to be achieved.

“There is much more opportunity today for little girls and for women in football. Back when I started to play there weren’t many women’s teams, nowadays all the girls who want to play, they find a girls’ team, they find a home. The game is growing but we’re still not where we want to be.”

A regular for European giants Lyon and Wolfsburg during her playing days, Dickenmann has seen first hand just how huge change at the top of the game has come.

“On an elite level, the media reach has gotten much bigger, the players have gotten much more famous, more well-known in broader society, and everything from salaries, to where the games are played and how many spectators attend the game, everything has grown really fast but now we need to make sure, on a grassroots level, on a more structural level, we can keep up with that change so that it can last a very long time.”

This summer a return to Wolfsburg has been announced, where Dickenmann will be heading up the club’s academy, looking to bring through the next generation. Projects like Feed The Game will be crucial for doing exactly that, especially in this summer’s host nation.

Asked on where she wants to see steps taken to improve the women’s game, it’s clear Dickenmann’s attention is on the stars of tomorrow.

“Looking at Switzerland, I’d say the structure. The women’s game here is not represented at decision-making levels in football, so it’s very important if we want to move on and grow that we are there when we talk about making decisions in the game. It’s that and grassroots football: if the pyramid is bigger, wider, at the bottom, then the top will also grow and will also get better.

“Especially in the UK I’ve seen it grow, and in the US, and what I really like is the diversity. It represents what we as players in women’s football in general have been standing for.”

Of course, we can’t let her go without asking where her go-to post-match order would come from after 90 minutes of hard running.

“Pizza!” she says without hesitation. “I loved when they brought pizza into the locker room and we could eat it before getting in the shower … during our celebrations, ideally!”