White shorts continue to impact women's performance and participation

ZURICH :Professional women's soccer teams have increasingly moved away from white shorts to address concerns over period anxiety, but studies have found the issue continues to impact on performance and on discouraging young girls from participating in sport.

Alex Krumer, a professor in sports economics at Molde University College in Norway, presented his 2024 peer-reviewed study on the performance effects of wearing white shorts to an audience at the University of St. Gallen last week, coinciding with the Women's European Championships in Switzerland.

Krumer's research, based on data from World Cups and European Championships between 2002 and 2023, found that women's teams wearing white shorts averaged 1.27 points per game compared to 1.57 points for teams in dark colours. Men's teams showed no performance drop when wearing white.

Krumer said there was not enough conversation on the issue.

"Sports should be a vehicle for gender empowerment," he told Reuters. "It's about inclusiveness, because this is an exclusive part in women's soccer, not necessarily for professionals but for the young girls this is important."

Denmark, Norway and Finland are among teams at Euro 2025 wearing white shorts.

"My colleague messaged me, 'Alex, they're playing games in white shorts. It feels that they really want to piss you off'," he said.

England's Lionesses swapped their white shorts for blue ahead of the 2023 World Cup after player complaints. Captain Leah Williamson said talking about periods in sport should be normalised.

"Half of the population has one, you are not alone," the defender said in an interview with the Football Association earlier this year.

"We empower each other in so many other ways that then this is just one of the small