The Swiss women’s football team is still fighting for acceptance and spectators.
The Swiss women’s football team is still fighting for acceptance and spectators. Wikimedia

The rise of women’s football in Switzerland

The Swiss women’s football team has improved beyond all recognition since 1970. Their football has become more physical, dynamic and tactically refined. However, their greatest challenge possibly lay in gaining acceptance.

Michael Jucker

Michael Jucker

Michael Jucker is a sports historian, head of Swiss Sports History and co-director of the FCZ Museum.

The women’s national football team played its first match in 1970. A league was founded in the same year. The early days were tough and fraught with difficulties. The players had to contend with prejudice and resistance. Many men, some of whom were in the Swiss Football Association, were initially critical of women playing the game. Then again, others supported their inclusion in the sport. The ladies’ first game was an unofficial fixture against Austria in 1970 at the Breite stadium in Schaffhausen. Although it wasn’t one of the country’s best grounds, it had still been used for Nationalliga-A games (as the Super League was called at the time). The Swiss posted an emphatic 9:0 victory before a big crowd against a scratch Austrian side. The first game recognised by FIFA and the Swiss Football Association took place in 1972 against France in Basel; it ended in a 2:2 draw. The initial media interest was strong, as women’s football was new and something of a sensation. However, the television and newspaper coverage was peppered with misogyny and disdain. The initial excitement quickly abated as a result.
Report on the Swiss women’s football team’s first game in Schaffhausen (in German). YouTube
There were no official press photographs of the national team in the public domain in the early 1970s. The images currently in circulation are mainly from the FCZ Museum archive and were sourced from the players themselves. The esprit de corps among the players is plain to see, and they came from all over Switzerland, as they still do today. When the team came to Basel in 1975, they met up with FC Basel legend Karli Odermatt. Unfortunately, this encounter failed to bring them the luck they needed – they lost 1:3 against England, the home of football.
The Swiss women’s team met Karl Odermatt, one of the country’s best footballers, in 1975.
The Swiss women’s team met Karl Odermatt, one of the country’s best footballers, in 1975. FCZ Museum
Photographs are a good way of seeing how sports clothing and fashion have changed over the years. The tracksuits and jerseys appear in all shapes and sizes, from tight-fitting to loose, and with or without collars. For the Austria match in Schaffhausen, the women were given faded junior team strips to wear, much to the players’ understandable embarrassment. When the league was founded in 1970, officials considered bringing in bras reinforced with metal as chesting the ball was thought to cause breast cancer. Fortunately, the idea came to nothing. For a long time, sportswear was almost exclusively designed for men. Football boots and shorts for women only came on the market fairly recently; before that, the ladies had to wear men’s or children’s sizes. Those days are fortunately gone. Now jerseys and shorts are made to fit women. And sporting goods manufacturers have gradually been making progress with ladies’ boots over the past five years.
Switzerland’s female footballers had to make do with junior team strips for a long time. As here at their first-ever international match in Schaffhausen in 1970.
Switzerland’s female footballers had to make do with junior team strips for a long time. As here at their first-ever international match in Schaffhausen in 1970. Keystone / STR
It took the team a long time to make any meaningful progress on the pitch. While Switzerland more or less kept pace with other countries during the 1970s, a marked decline ensued thereafter. In the 1980s and 1990s, a distinct hierarchy emerged in women’s football. Most countries were better than Switzerland. In 1988, for example, Switzerland played a European championship qualifier against Germany in Binningen (canton of Basel-Landschaft), which they lost 0:10. In May 1993, Switzerland again lost to Germany, which was one of Europe’s top teams in the early ‘90s. As was commonplace at the time, the match was played away from the bright lights of the bigger stadiums in a smaller ground, at Wädenswil (canton of Zurich).
For a long time, the Swiss women’s football team, pictured here with Helen Barmettler, had to play their games at smaller grounds.
For a long time, the Swiss women’s football team, pictured here with Helen Barmettler, had to play their games at smaller grounds. FCZ Museum
The national team, for which Helen Barmettler played between 1972 and 1984, remained below average for a long time. Qualification for international tournaments proved beyond them for decades. This was due not least to the governing association’s failure for many years to invest in the grassroots level of the game. Success is contingent on a constant stream of new players coming through, something which doesn’t happen naturally in a small country like Switzerland. It took the Swiss Football Association (SFA) a long time to recognise that. There was little emphasis on youth development until after the turn of the millennium. In 2004, the Football Association set up a Mädchen- und Frauenfussball (girls’ and ladies’ football) section along with a training centre for girls. The number of girls and women playing football has soared in recent years. Women have also been present on the General Secretariat and Board of the SFA since 2020. The promotion of young talent is extremely important for the first team, as it provides a better grounding in the sport for the up-and-coming players. Switzerland’s best young female players now attract attention from abroad.
Swiss international Noelle Maritz in Arsenal colours. She now plays for Aston Villa.
Swiss international Noelle Maritz in Arsenal colours. She now plays for Aston Villa. Wikimedia
The system has been yielding results for about 15 years. Switzerland is becoming more of a force on the international stage. The country’s first-time participation in the World Cup finals in 2015 was a key milestone in the development of the women’s team. The crossover appeal and media coverage of the game is increasing markedly, as is crowd attendance. The players have also given the media some good stories to work with. For example, FC Zurich player Fabienne Humm scored the fastest hat-trick ever against Ecuador at the 2015 World Cup in Canada. Switzerland’s first-ever participation in a major European tournament came with the country’s qualification for the 2017 European Championships. The team enjoyed great success from 2012 to 2018 under German coach, Martina Voss-Tecklenburg. It qualified for the 2015 World Cup in Canada and the 2017 European Championships in the Netherlands, although qualification for the 2019 World Cup proved a bridge too far. The team also earned a place at the European finals in England in 2022 under Danish coach Niels Nielsen and then at the World Cup in Australia one year later.
Fabienne Humms hat-trick at the World Cup in Canada, 2015. SRF
With coach Inka Grings at the helm, the Swiss played against New Zealand, Norway and the Philippines at the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. They won their group, earning them a place in the last sixteen against eventual winners Spain, which they lost 1:5 leading to Switzerland’s exit from the tournament. The media coverage and attendance at national team matches, although on the rise, remain modest  by international standards and relative to the domestic men’s game. Every qualification for an international tournament — whether at junior level or involving the first team — helps grow the game’s profile. Broad-based support and higher attendance will increase recognition going forward. Especially at the European Championships in Switzerland, which will hopefully be played in sold-out stadiums.

Swiss Sports History

This text was produced in collaboration with Swiss Sports History, the portal for the history of sports in Switzerland. The portal focuses on education in schools and information for the media, researchers and the general public. Find out more at sportshistory.ch

Published on: 02.07.2025

URL: https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2025/07/the-rise-of-womens-football-in-switzerland/

More of: 20th / 21st centurySportsWomen in historySwiss Sports History

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