What if a football match were played over 113 minutes, with a pitch measuring 118 x 76 m, a basketball and goalposts measuring 7.93 x 2.64 m? What would be the physical impact on the players and the game? In the run-up to the Women's Euro, SRF's Swiss broadcasting group conducted this experiment, based on a study by a Norwegian university published in 2019, which determined "how a match should be modified to neutralise male biological and morphological advantages’, such as speed, stamina or height". FC Winterthur's U17s and FC Thun's U19s therefore faced off on a resized pitch, during which the 24 heures media gathered the following testimonies: "I'm dead! I need oxygen..." These young trainees runned between 12 and 13 kilometres and experienced increased fatigue, difficulty taking corners, or covering their areas for the goalkeepers... The experiment highlighted the challenge for women of playing a sport sized to male standards. The same Norwegian study recommended 70-minute matches, size 4 balls and more modestly sized goals and pitches to achieve the same conditions as men. Is this an avenue worth exploring to make women's football more attractive and fairer?
Brief
Sweden's Smilla Holmberg (left) and England's Lauren James in action during the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 quarter-final match won by the English (2-2, 3-2) / ©Icon Sport