April 20 – The final of this this summer’s Women’s European Championship being staged at Wembley has already sold out along with host nation England’s three group games.
Manchester United’s Old Trafford is hosting the opening ceremony on July 6, followed by England against Austria in the 73,200-capacity stadium.
More than 30,000 fans will then watch England play Norway in Brighton and Northern Ireland in Southampton.
The final, at Wembley on 31 July, is set to break the attendance record for a women’s match in England, with 87,200 tickets snapped up. It could end up actually surpassing the attendance record for any Euros final — men or women’s.
In all eight matches have so far sold out, including two of Iceland’s group games being staged at the City Football Academy, which has a capacity of 4,700 and is the home of Manchester City women.
But Iceland’s captain is furious about being handed the tiny venue which she has labelled embarrassing and disrespectful and likened it to a training ground.
Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir told the podcast Their Pitch: ‘“I’m a little bit disappointed with some of the stadiums that we got. It’s shocking.
“You’re playing in England, you have so many stadiums, and we have a training ground from City. It’s just embarrassing. Women’s football today, they’re filling out the stadiums. If you see Barcelona against Real Madrid, we have 95,000 watching the game.
“They haven’t prepared for the fact that we can sell more than 4,000, it is disrespectful to women’s football because it’s so much bigger than people think. There will be games in big stadiums and I’m pretty sure they’re going to be sold out.”
Gunnarsdóttir urged a rethink. “I don’t know what’s going on in their heads or if they’re even following women’s football,” the Lyon midfielder added.
“Women’s football’s exploding, it’s getting so much better. They should 100% reconsider it, because I think you see the reaction and how fast the tickets are going and how popular it is, they have to reconsider their decision.”
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