LIVE: UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 kicks off

It may still not be as huge as the men’s game, but women’s football continues to be on the rise – it’s no longer the poor relation, something to watch when the blokes aren’t on.

These days, we can all name members of our nation’s team; the time when they were anonymous figures are long gone. And the BBC deserves a pat on the back for partly being responsible for that – the corporation has backed the game for years, so it should be no surprise to find it’s broadcasting every match in the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 tournament.

Barbara Slater, the BBC director of sport, says of the coverage: “This is our most ambitious broadcast commitment to a major women’s football tournament with the greatest share of matches on network television. Not long after I first started in this role, the BBC covered the 2009 Women’s Euros in Finland. The truth is there was limited audience interest, the total reach for the tournament was just 2.5 million.

“The springboard was London 2012, when 70-odd thousand people crammed into Wembley to watch Team GB’s women’s team beat the mighty Brazil. It was a moment in time, when we knew the sport was ready to move to the next level.

“We invested heavily in our coverage and in 2019, 27 million tuned into the Women’s World Cup in France on the BBC – the most watched sporting event of the year. Women’s football has developed beyond all recognition in the last decade and BBC Sport has been there every step of the way.”

The championships are the first major women’s football tournament to be hosted in England for 17 years, and back then, shamefully, it was very much a minority sport. However, this time, all 31 games will be broadcast live, with matches on BBC One and BBC Two as well as being available via the BBC