One of the country’s biggest women’s football podcasts has been forced to close after they were unable to find a sponsor - despite contacting over 100 brands since last summer’s World Cup.

The Offside Rule WSL podcast - presented by journalists Kait Borsay and Lynsey Hooper - has been funded and produced by Muddy Knees Media, the company behind the Totally Football series. The podcast, a version of which was produced in collaboration with Spotify during the World Cup, has become renowned for securing high-profile guests - including Eniola Aluko, Kelly Smith and Nick Cushing - and is the only weekly women’s football podcast that analyses every WSL match. No sponsor has come forward to help with studio and production costs.

Now Borsay and Hooper - who often attend WSL matches unpaid - fear there is a “disconnect” with brands that publicly declare support for women’s football but then fail to follow that up financially. The pair are confident their listeners would willingly crowd fund the podcast but want to set a precedent that “the women’s game deserves to not have to be crowd funded”, Hooper said.

She continued: “We’ve got to start really calling out all these brands and people that are supposedly, off the back of the World Cup, wanting to get behind women’s football - but when it comes to digging deep for the regular stuff, they’re not really putting their money where their mouth is.

“Brands are starting to put money into the game, but you need the things around the game like the coverage. One without the other doesn’t work for anybody. It’s no good having this product that no-one’s talking about, that no-one can send journalists to because of costs.”

Hooper has attended brand events where journalists were prevented from speaking to players, as well as “events organised by brands associated with women’s football costing tens of thousands of pounds. The attendance and marketing have been poor. With that amount of money, you could support our podcast until the end of the season. It’s money that’s misplaced and misjudged - not deliberately, but because we’re all trying to understand the game. There’s a problem with investment not being there, but also not being used in the best way.”