Women's World Cup: When can I next watch women's football?
- Published
Women's World Cup 2019: USA beat Netherlands 2-0 to win record fourth title
The Women's World Cup may be over but there's still plenty of women's football to get your teeth into over the next few months.
The Women's Super League (WSL) season kicks off on the weekend of 7-8 September and there are a handful of eye-catching fixtures.
FA Cup winners Manchester City, which contains six of England's World Cup squad - including captain Steph Houghton - take on cross-city rivals and Championship winners Manchester United in their first women's derby.
League champions Arsenal are at home to West Ham, while newly-promoted Tottenham visit a Chelsea side which includes England stars Fran Kirby, Carly Telford and Millie Bright. The Blues finished third in the league and reached the semi-finals of the Women's Champions League (UWCL) last season.
Elsewhere, Birmingham City host Everton, Brighton travel to Bristol City and Liverpool take on Reading.
What other football is available?
England left-back Alex Greenwood captained Manchester United to the Women's Championship title last season
The Women's Championship gets under way on the weekend of 17-18 August and sees newly-promoted sides Blackburn Rovers and Coventry United travel to Lewes and Crystal Palace respectively.
There are also a whole host of pre-season matches taking place across the UK. Arsenal will play Bayern Munich in the Emirates Cup on 28 July - the same day the men's side face Lyon.
Clubs such as Liverpool Women are accompanying the men's team on a pre-season tour for the first time.
European action also gets under way in September when Manchester City and Arsenal enter the round of 32 in the Women's Champions League. They take place on 11-12 and 25-26 September.
If you're keen to watch the Lionesses after they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup, they are hosting a friendly at Wembley on 9 November against two-time world champions Germany, for which more than 30,000 tickets have already been sold.
England, hosts of Euro 2021, will also play Norway in Bergen on 3 September.
Meanwhile, Scotland and Wales are already preparing for their European qualifiers at the end of August.
Scotland, fresh from competing in their first Women's World Cup in France, will take on Cyprus on 30 August, a day after Wales travel to the Faroe Islands.
What are the aims going forward?
Dutch World Cup finalists (from left to right) Sari van Veenendaal, Danielle van de Donk, Dominique Bloodworth and Vivianne Miedema won the WSL title with Arsenal last season
The top-flight average attendance for last season was 965 in the WSL but the Football Association's 'Gameplan for Growth' targets an average of 2,020 fans per game by 2021.
FA chief executive Martin Glenn says that plans to double the number of girls and women playing football by 2020 are "on track".
Prior to this summer's World Cup, the record UK TV audience for a women's football match was 4m, but that mark was broken four times in France, culminating in a peak of 11.7m for England's semi-final defeat.
There has also been improved sponsorship deals, including a £10m deal from Barclays for the WSL, which will kick in next season.
And there are already plans to increase the size of the Women's World Cup to 32 teams, double its prize money and launch a women's Club World Cup.
Talks are also taking place about hosting some of the opening WSL games at Premier League grounds. The Etihad Stadium could host the first Manchester women's derby.