Louise Lawless: Fans bought into the World Cup. Why didn’t the corporate world?

The Women’s World Cup is over for the Irish women’s national team who arrived home to crowds of 8,000 people on O’Connell Street on Thursday. The focus now becomes: what happens next?

The consensus is that, despite two narrow losses and a draw, it was a positive, solid campaign, a notable entry to the history books of Irish women’s soccer in this country.

This team have endeared themselves to the interested Irish public. Their next goal should be to translate that deep support out wider. To borrow a political analogy, their base voters are set, but the swing voters and undecideds must be targeted next.

For the team and manager, the results weren’t decisive enough to accurately map out next steps, leaving a few key, pressing questions about the future.

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For some in the World Cup squad, it is likely there’ll be retirements – Diane Caldwell and Áine O’Gorman, with potentially Niamh Fahy and Louise Quinn to follow in the next few years.

Players left out of the World Cup squad will be fighting to ensure their way back in. The Republic’s next fixture, their first in the 51,000 capacity Aviva Stadium, is in seven weeks against Northern Ireland for the Nations League.

Top of the agenda for the FAI and its board is a World Cup review, including the question of manager Vera Pauw’s future. She has made it abundantly clear she wants to stay for another two years. But the players have been non-committal and the FAI has remained schtum.

If the World Cup was to be Ireland’s equivalent of the men’s Italia 90, then the onfield spat between captain Katie McCabe and Vera Pauw during the Nigeria game – when McCabe asked Pauw to bring on some fresh legs, which didn’t happen for another 12 minutes – is being seen as the women’s Saipan moment, a reminder of the men’s 2002 World Cup controversy.

Granted, McCabe’s subsequent zipped emoji tweet was a moment not on the scale of Roy Keane being sent home. But the tweet, sent in the hours after the match with emotions still running high, created the impression that McCabe was determined to get the last word on the whole incident. It added to the drama of it all and has had 1.6m views as of the time of writing.

The timing is pertinent. Pauw’s future is very much up in the air whereas McCabe is safe, protected by her skill, captaincy and consistently high-quality performances. Her voice and her subsequent silence will carry weight with the FAI.

Had Pauw delivered a win in the group stage, perhaps her stars would align. Unfortunately for her, it’ll come down to whether the FAI believes that she can bring the team further with the talent we have, while lugging her past and accompanying baggage behind her.

The future of Irish women’s football is bright. So why, then, is the penny still failing to drop for brands, advertisers and casual sports fans? Corporate buy-in to this World Cup was limited, lacking the all-encompassing fervour expected of a national team who have made it to a World Cup, both in Ireland who were debutants but also in Australia who were co-hosts.

At home, you can predict the fuss that will (eventually) accompany the men when they reach a World Cup again, which they haven’t done in 21 years. Tricolours will be outside the windows of homes and businesses. Penney’s will likely have a range of green and Irish merchandise.

There’ll be hours clocked off work in order to watch the games. Bars will be booked in advance of games. The same cannot be said for this World Cup. The events that were organised had a personal connection, such as Abbie Larkin’s family in Ringsend or Her Sport’s watch party in the Camden.

The reaction in Australia was depressingly similar. There were banners in the cities, but for the most part, the country was unaffected by soccer’s biggest tournament.

The record numbers and attendances are a jarring contrast to the apparent indifference of the locations, with millions of tickets bought, and TV viewing records consistently broken. Unlike in Ireland, the games were not all free to watch, further restricting casual participation from the uninitiated.

The few Australian companies that had bought into the tournament placed their investments in individuals. Captain Sam Kerr reportedly made a cool $3 million last year – up to 10 times that of her Australian team-mates – thanks to her brand deals and Chelsea contract. Her face, along with Ellie Carpenter for Visa, was featured on posters around Australia.

But overall, the response of the corporate world was muted. The hesitancy is misplaced, a relic of a time before. Public awareness accumulated in a steady, sustainable build. In contrast, take the Irish women’s hockey team.

In 2018, they reached the World Cup final in London, the first Irish team to accomplish the feat. There was a great rush to support them, in spite of people not knowing much about the team or having much knowledge about hockey. When it ended, the attention fell off the face of a cliff. The team hadn’t quite made it to the collective consciousness.

However, the Irish women’s football team stormed into the spotlight in 2017 after a threatened strike and their star has only really been on the rise since, with better performances, equal pay, and an unprecedented, stand-alone sponsorship with Sky. With matches already lined up and another qualifying campaign on the horizon – the Euros in early 2024 – this feels different, the support more enduring.

The FAI actively courts parents and children which is a long-term but worthwhile endeavour, hopefully creating lifelong fans.

Creating a deep well of connection from a young age is a good idea, but the FAI may be missing a trick by not casting the net out wider to new adult fans. The Aviva could provide a fertile opportunity to tap into a fresh market of potential fans. There’s no reason why it couldn’t grow to levels of interest similar to the Six Nations.

The hype around the rugby tournament is aided by regular weekend fixtures which happen at virtually the same time every year and earn buy-in from pubs and restaurants. Whether you personally are interested in the rugby or not, you know it’s on because it’s impossible to miss it.

This is a key moment for fans, the team, and the FAI alike. It’s remarkable progress from five years ago, when the team were borrowing tracksuits from their underage colleagues. Where they are now was unfathomable as they stood in Liberty Hall threatening to strike.

They have delivered World Cup-worthy performances and the blueprints are in place to build on the solid foundations already there. Where we are hoping they’ll be in another five years is unimaginable for the precedent it could set for Irish women’s sport.