Scottish Women’s Premier League celebrates record spectator numbers

More supporters than ever attended games in the Scottish Women’s Premier League last season as records were broken all over the country.

A new all-time attendance record was set at Celtic Park in the final day of the season when over 15,000 attended the Hoops title-decider against Hearts.

A total of 106,781 fans went to an SWPL, SWPL 2, or Sky Sports Cup game, the highest figure in a single campaign since the creation of the women’s top flight.

SWPL managing director Fiona McIntyre has hailed the numbers for women’s football in Scotland and insisted breaking the 100,000 barrier was only recently “unimaginable”.

The domestic record attendance was broken on three occasions.

It was first set at Easter Road in November 2022, with 8,066 watching Hibernian versus Edinburgh rivals Hearts, before Celtic Park hosted 9,553 fans for the visit of Glasgow City in May.

Celtic broke the record again on the final day of the season, with 15,822 watching their 2-0 win over Hearts, but the win wasn’t enough to secure the title after a late Glasgow City winner in front of around 10,000 at Ibrox.

A record crowd was also at the Sky Sports Cup final, with 3,727 also at Rangers v Hibs at Tynecastle in December 2022.

McIntyre said: “We are delighted to confirm a record-breaking season for spectators attending across our competitions.

“The idea of having over 100,000 people in one season watching the women’s game was unimaginable only a few seasons ago, so these numbers are a testament to the growth of the game and the work of our clubs.

“These figures illustrate the increasing awareness and appetite for women’s football in Scotland and I hope we can continue to see attendances increase season after season.

“The women’s game is affordable, family friendly, competitive and provides an opportunity to watch top-level, elite athletes across communities in Scotland.

“Playing inside main club stadiums also helps, there’s no doubt about that and this is best illustrated in the matches where we saw attendance records broken last season.

“We hope this is something that can become more common in Scotland and as a league, we can support this where possible.”

A number of clubs also set record, club attendances including Hearts at Tynecastle Park and Rangers at Ibrox. Montrose also recorded the highest SWPL 2 attendance of the season for their trophy presentation at Links Park.

The 2023/24 Scottish Women’s Premier League and SWPL 2 get under way on Sunday, August 13 and conclude on May 19.