{"id":332581,"date":"2025-08-10T07:36:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T07:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/332581\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T07:36:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T07:36:20","slug":"im-not-going-to-lie-i-look-at-the-lionesses-with-jealousy-swpl-supremo-mcintyre-admits-scotland-needs-a-national-team-to-capture-the-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/332581\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I’m not going to lie … I look at the Lionesses with jealousy’… SWPL supremo McIntyre admits Scotland needs a national team to capture the imagination"},"content":{"rendered":"

As she pursues her own \u2018Utopia\u2019 for women\u2019s football in Scotland, Fiona McIntyre can\u2019t help but steal an envious glance at the paradise being built in England<\/a>\u2019s green and pleasant land. An inspiration, yes, but also a reminder of the miles still to be covered if this proud footballing nation is to realise McIntyre\u2019s dream of a completely full-time top flight.<\/p>\n

The SWPL managing director, rightly proud of a product unrivalled for drama at the business end of the table, is confident that every piece of available data points to continued growth in the women\u2019s game north of the border.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s only natural to feel that our nearest neighbours \u2014 in this case an English game guaranteed to take another stratospheric leap as a result of the Lionesses defending their European Championships<\/a> title \u2014 should produce mixed emotions for anyone trying to keep up with the Kellys and the Hamptons.<\/p>\n

\u2018I look at them, the Lionesses, with jealousy; I\u2019m not going to lie,\u2019 admits McIntyre. \u2018When Scotland qualified for the Euros and the World Cup, we saw the biggest uplift ever in the number of women playing football in Scotland. That\u2019s the impact, it\u2019s massive.<\/p>\n

\u2018Having a national team competing on the world stage or the European stage is hugely important, but also, from a league perspective, it does so much for the credibility of your country.<\/p>\n

\u2018I look at the national team and I see the talent there, and I know they\u2019re more than capable of qualifying. The new manager is in, and it feels like a sort of fresh momentum is coming with her, so I genuinely hope they can kick on, get some results and that we\u2019ll be sitting here again soon talking about a Scotland team going to the Euros or the World Cup.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Jubilant <\/p>\n

Jubilant England players lift the European Championship trophy last month in Basel<\/p>\n

\"Scotland <\/p>\n

Scotland have underachieved despite star players like Real Madrid’s Caroline Weir<\/p>\n

International aspirations are, of course, elements beyond the control of the people working so hard to modernise Scotland\u2019s elite domestic competition. But \u2018Prem One\u2019, as those in the game call an SWPL1 division which has just been cut from 12 teams to 10 in pursuit of greater competition across the board, is more than contributing to the wider growth of the sport.<\/p>\n

McIntyre feels that the top tier, with its dramatic final-day title deciders, its landmark partnership with ScottishPower and its growing profile across the country, is already delivering in one very important sphere of public life. Perception, in this age of optics and vibes, is everything.<\/p>\n

\u2018People have now got a far greater understanding that, as a professional women\u2019s football league in Scotland, we have real high-quality calibre elite professional athletes both in our country and those who have left, such as Erin Cuthbert and Caroline Weir.<\/p>\n

\u2018Women\u2019s football for a long time was viewed as almost quite amateur and part of that would be down to the resource that was in it, and the visibility of it, and that impacted how players were able to prepare.<\/p>\n

\"Hibs <\/p>\n

Hibs lift the SWPL title at Ibrox after a dramatic final day of the 2024-25 season<\/p>\n

\"Rangers <\/p>\n

Rangers and Celtic will again set their sights on the title this coming season<\/p>\n

\u2018What you see now is a growing respect for the fact that women\u2019s football is an elite sport, attracting national brands like ScottishPower, and there\u2019s an aspirational element to it now.<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s probably the biggest shift that I\u2019ve seen, particularly around the younger generations when you see young girls waiting for items to get autographed and they\u2019ve got kits with names of the female players on the back. That really shows you have created these real genuine role models.\u2019<\/p>\n

Not content to rest on achievements to date, McIntyre is eager to see improvement \u2014 across all metrics \u2014 as the new SWPL kicks off on Sunday August 17. When it come to dramatic tension, the last few campaigns will be hard to beat.<\/p>\n

Hibs will defend the title they won last season on a final day when any one of four teams could have taken the crown. Previous to that, Celtic won on goal difference and, before that, Glasgow City triumphed with the last kick of the campaign.<\/p>\n

For a game looking to attract new fans and commercial partners, that\u2019s the stuff of dreams.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s huge,\u2019 says McIntyre. \u2018We speak a lot about everything around the game and what we\u2019re trying to achieve off the pitch, but fundamentally what happens on the pitch is the most important thing.<\/p>\n

\u2018Football is at its most exciting when it\u2019s competitive and there\u2019s a real uncertainty of the outcome. We\u2019ve been really fortunate in the last three seasons that people were genuinely not sure which way it was going to end until the very last kick of the ball.<\/p>\n

\u2018I think we\u2019re the most competitive (league) in Europe. We absolutely want to capitalise on that in terms of using that narrative, that story. I think that\u2019s created media interest \u2014 or additional media interest \u2014 and that\u2019s something we absolutely try and capitalise on to get people into stadiums.\u2019<\/p>\n

McIntyre is keen to talk about perception and is working hard to ensure the game in Scotland is respected accordingly.<\/p>\n

This season is one of change in the SWPL. The top league has been reduced from 12 to ten teams. There is a reason for that, obviously, and it has all to do with quality and competitiveness. The SWPL was matched only by Spain in the number of games players were being asked to play, so that had to be reduced.<\/p>\n

\"SWPL <\/p>\n

SWPL managing director Fiona McIntyre is eager to modernise women’s football in Scotland<\/p>\n

\"Women's <\/p>\n

Women’s manager Elena Sadiku will be hoping Celtic can reclaim their league crown<\/p>\n

Also, a UEFA study showed that, post-split, the SWPL was by far the most competitive but, pre-split, it was at the other end of the spectrum with at times particularly high, one-sided scorelines. That needed to change, but all the teams had to be on board.<\/p>\n

When the SPFL touted cutting the Premiership to ten teams, there was outcry. In the SWPL, it was different.<\/p>\n

McIntyre says: \u2018I guess women\u2019s football is still earlier in its journey and, from the outset, when we set up the SWPL, there was definitely a real sense of collective identity. All the clubs were coming together for the greater good of women\u2019s football.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s never a popular decision to reduce the top league. Essentially, we relegated three teams and not everyone necessarily liked that but, to their credit, they all understood because we presented the data, we presented the why, and even the clubs that were impacted by that negatively were very understanding because we presented the reasons and the rationale behind it.\u2019<\/p>\n

It takes a lot for clubs to commit to full professionalism. Even champions Hibs don\u2019t pay all of their full-time players what you would call a proper living wage. That won\u2019t change overnight.<\/p>\n

But a completely full-time top flight? An entire league full of female footballers who have earned the right to call themselves professionals?<\/p>\n

\u2018I hope so \u2014 that\u2019s certainly what we are trying to deliver,\u2019 says McIntyre. \u2018That\u2019s the Utopia.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u25a0 ScottishPower is dedicated to energising women\u2019s football at every age and stage of the game through its exclusive Principal Partner for the Scottish Women\u2019s Premier League (SWPL) and Scottish Women\u2019s Football (SWF).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As she pursues her own \u2018Utopia\u2019 for women\u2019s football in Scotland, Fiona McIntyre can\u2019t help but steal an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,92,94,4884,712,93,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-332581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-scotland","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115003325843900911","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}