UEFA Women’s Euro 2025: What Elite Sport Still Doesn’t Understand About the Female Body

As Europe prepares for UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 in Switzerland, the anticipation is high: stadiums are selling out, record viewership is expected, and nations are finally giving women's football the platform it deserves.

But as the lights go up on another landmark tournament, there’s something the cameras won’t show—something we still rarely talk about when it comes to women in elite sport: the systemic misunderstanding of the female body.

The Physical Toll Nobody Plans For

Female footballers train, play, and recover in a sports infrastructure designed by and for men. The majority of football training plans, injury prevention protocols, and performance benchmarks still centre male physiology—despite the fact that women’s hormonal fluctuations, pelvic anatomy, and soft tissue makeup significantly alter how they respond to stress, fatigue, and injury.

For example, female players are 4 to 6 times more likely to suffer ACL injuries than their male counterparts, yet many clubs still don’t offer menstrual cycle-informed training or tailored injury prevention programs.

"The research gap is huge," says Dr. Sarah Ellis, a sports medicine specialist working with elite female athletes. “We are sending these players into world-class tournaments without world-class understanding of how their bodies function.”

Periods, Performance, and the Taboo That Won’t Die

Despite high-profile players like Chelsea’s Fran Kirby and Arsenal’s Beth Mead speaking openly about endometriosis and cycle-related fatigue, periods remain a taboo topic in many locker rooms and training camps.

Some teams still don’t track menstrual cycles. Some players still play through severe symptoms in silence, fearing they’ll be seen as ‘fragile’ or ‘unprofessional.’ In a sport built around the body, we continue to ignore a fundamental part of it.

Reproductive Health and Career Longevity

Unlike their male peers, female footballers also face complex decisions around fertility, contraception, and family planning—often without proper medical or institutional support.

There is no standardised protocol for returning to elite sport postpartum. There’s no universal policy on pregnancy loss, despite several players sharing experiences of miscarriage or IVF while under contract. And there are still professional environments where being pregnant can quietly cost you your place.

When we talk about equality in football, we can’t just count caps or prize money. We have to look at what it takes for a woman to stay in the game.

The Euros as a Turning Point?

The Women’s Euros represent more than a trophy—they’re a chance to reframe the conversation around the female athlete. Several national teams are starting to build infrastructure that respects the realities of the female body: menstrual health tracking, gender-informed training, improved maternity policies.

But these are still exceptions, not norms.

If UEFA wants to lead the future of women’s football, it has to take the female body seriously—not as a problem to be managed, but as the foundation of performance, talent, and wellbeing.

The bodies on the pitch are not just athletes—they’re change-makers. Their strength, resilience, and vulnerability reflect the broader issues women face in workplaces, healthcare, and public life.