Alex Greenwood interview: World Cup TV figures in England prove women's game is a big hit

EXCLUSIVE
Making an impression: Alex Greenwood playing for England
Getty Images

Alex Greenwood says she is bored of negative comments about women’s football and pointed to the record TV figures for England’s 2-1 win over Scotland as proof of interest in the game.

The BBC One audience for the Lionesses’ World Cup opener in Nice on Sunday peaked at 6.1million to make it the most watched women’s football match in the UK. Earlier in the day, a peak of just 1.2m watched the men’s Nations League third-place play-off against Switzerland on subscription channel Sky Sports.

And Greenwood is confident they will break more records in this tournament.

“It’s unbelievable, it just shows how far the game has come,” the Manchester United captain told Standard Sport. “To have the crowd and the support we had in the game was one thing, to see the figure afterwards was another.

"The girls are loving it, I was blown away. You’re never going to change some opinions, but those figures speak for themselves. Sometimes hearing all that gets said [about women’s football], it gets boring. If people aren’t interested, they aren’t interested. That’s fine. But those figures prove people are interested.

"It’s fantastic and I hope they grow as the tournament goes on.”

Chelsea’s Fran Kirby added: “We’re always fighting people who are saying [negative] stuff. But the figures show it’s a minority. We’re not playing to show people they need to care about women’s football, we’re playing to win a World Cup. Hopefully we can keep the minority a minority and continue to grow this sport.”

The TV audience was huge considering the crowd of just 13,188 at the 31,500-capacity Stade de Nice. “Was it a concern? No. Did I expect it to be more full? Yes,” said Greenwood.

“Hopefully they will fill out as the tournament goes on. But the viewing figures speak for themselves. The longer we stay here, the more the audience will increase.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT