Alan Brazil's nonsense comment on women's football shut down by one argument

The popularity of women’s football is a talking point again this week, thanks to comments from TalkSPORT host Alan Brazil.

The 65-year-old has had backlash from his comments live on the radio station on Thursday morning. In a conversation around Manchester United’s ‘Mission 21’ plan with the aims of restoring the former glory to the club, the fact that one of the aims of the mission is for the club’s women’s team to win the Women’s Super League (WSL) was brought up by journalist Shebahn Aherne.

But Brazil wasn't having any of it, claiming that fans are ‘not bothered’ by the success of the women’s team. After being challenged by Aherne, he refused to back down and was branded a ‘dinosaur’ by his fellow presenter.

It’s something that Aherne was completely right to call out. The claim that fans are ‘not bothered’ by the women’s side of the game is completely untrue and can be proven so by the numbers.

According to FootballWebPages, the average attendance in the WSL this season is 6,779, up from an average of 5,560 just two seasons earlier. Arsenal, historically the most successful women’s team have an average attendance of 28,119 so far this season, more than the average of all but three Championship clubs.

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But it’s not just those watching in the stadium. Such is the growing popularity of the women’s game, the WSL agreed a record £65 million five year TV deal with Sky Sports and BBC back in October. The deal will see almost every WSL game broadcast live on TV from the start of the 2025/26 campaign.

It’s comments like Brazil’s that dismiss the progress and the exponential growth that has happened around the women’s game over