Austria's women's football in the crisis: EM 2025 missed!

Austria's women's football in the crisis: EM 2025 missed!

Austria's national women's national team has missed the opportunity to take part in the 2025 European Football Championship in Switzerland. After a disappointing departure in the play-off round against Poland, the team, which previously performed considerable performance at the 2017 and 2022 tournaments, remains without participation. In the Generali Arena in Vienna, Austria lost the decisive second leg 0: 1. The overall result of 2-0 secured Poland the European Championship start. Ewa Pajor scored the decisive goal in added time, while Lilli Purtscheller spent numerous chances. With 3,200 spectators in this second leg, the support of the fans was disappointing.

The Austrian trainer Irene Fuhrmann faced her critical voices after the defeat. Players expressed their disappointment with the missed European Championship qualification and asked for better preparation for the upcoming challenges. The team's state of health was also burdened by the violation of Barbara Dunst, which was affected by the right knee, so that the health department of the ÖFB was affected. Against the difficult background of the sporting development of Austrian women's football, the trainer is accused of not developing adequate punch against well -organized teams.

The situation of women's football in Austria

The Austrian Football Association (ÖFB) currently has no plans to host national adult finals due to an ongoing “strategy process”. While Switzerland organizes an important tournament with the 2025 women's European Championship, Austria remains in a audience role. The ÖFB focuses on the analysis of organizational, infrastructural and economic parameters in order to determine the greatest possible added value for football in Austria. The last alignment of a young tournament took place in 2007.

The evaluation that takes place in the context of future planning shows that the ÖFB not only wants to react to the current situation, but also wants to develop forward -looking application strategies. This is done in coordination with national and international partners. Regarding the financial aspects of the current European Championship European Championships in Switzerland, it should be mentioned that the tournament is estimated with costs of around 250 million euros, of which the UEFA bears CHF 150 million

competition between neighboring countries

Switzerland has recently experienced a remarkable upswing in women's football while Austria stagnated. The Swiss recently broken audience records and will now expect a total value added of up to 200 million euros from the European Championship. For comparison: Despite the previous success in the group phase of qualification, Austria could not build on these developments.

The dealings between Switzerland and Austria were described as "best friends in a somewhat boring relationship". Both countries are similar in many aspects, but while Switzerland is progressing in women's football, Austria is fighting against an impending crisis. All the more, those responsible in Austria should learn from the success of Switzerland and show more interest in sporting development.