The early days of Ireland's pioneering women footballers

Analysis: Irish women's football in the 1970s enjoyed a friendship and rivalry with one of France's leading teams Stade de Reims

By Helena Byrne, British Library

To mark International Women's Day 2024, the documentary film Copa 71 will be released nationwide across Ireland and Britain. You might not have heard of Copa 71 before, but it was the largest unofficial tournament for women’s soccer. These tournaments were funded by corporate supporters and Copa 71 was held in Mexico City in August 1971, decades before we had the official Women's World Cup.

Teams from Mexico, Argentina, England, Denmark, France and Italy played in sold out stadiums that hosted the men’s FIFA World Cup the year before. This was the third unofficial international competition organised by Fédération Internationale Européenne de Football Féminine (FIEFF).

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Trailer for Copa 71, the extraordinary story of the 1971 Women's Football World Cup told by the pioneering women who participated in it and built from archive unseen for fifty years

These tournaments, along with the global growth of women's football from the late 1960s, put huge pressure on FIFA and UEFA to start paying attention to the development of the sport. In June 1971, UEFA mandated its members to take control of women's football in their jurisdictions. This was an attempt to stifle corporate interests developing the sport outside of the UEFA structure.

Copa 71 received huge media coverage in Mexico and the players were treated like celebrities.