With record attendances, multimillion-pound sponsorship deals and global brand announcements, this has been a monumental week for women’s football and I’m excited to be involved in the next historic moment when Juventus face Fiorentina in the first Women’s Serie A match to be held at the Allianz Stadium on Sunday.

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Last weekend 60,000 people attended Atlético Madrid’s game against Barcelona at the Wanda Metropolitano to set a record for the women’s club game. It was incredible to see a full stadium in Madrid for the women in what would be the norm for the same fixture in the men’s game. The women’s game is ready for full stadiums to become normality.

Juventus are expecting a crowd of more than 20,000 after announcing free entry. That’s really great because a lot of people can’t afford to pay €85 a week to come to the stadium.

It’s a huge game in the title race – Fiorentina are one point behind us with four games left. We need to make sure we manage the historic occasion and our emotions. When I played at Stamford Bridge for the first time for Chelsea against Wolfsburg in the Champions League, we were guilty of letting the emotion of the game get the better of us. After that, Chelsea were able to perform excellently in two games at Wembley in front of big crowds because we understood how to manage our emotions and play the game, not the occasion.

Fortunately we’ve been to the Allianz Stadium this week so we’ve got all the emotions, pictures and visualisation out of the way and all the other stuff that can distract you. I’ve always said it does not matter if you are playing in the park; if it’s an important match it is an important match, so we need to focus.

The game on Sunday comes at a perfect time because so many women’s teams around Europe have started to attract big crowds, as we saw in Spain. This is crucial for women’s football as it shows a business model that really works in having a women’s team who are part of an established club brand. The minute you say “Juventus are playing Fiorentina at the Allianz Stadium”, people want to see that match whether it is the under-23s, the first team or women.

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England’s friendly against Canada next month is sold out at Manchester City’s Academy Stadium in another example that the appetite for the women’s game is growing, and the penny seems to have dropped with brands and broadcasters. Sky in Italy are broadcasting every match at the Women’s World Cup in the summer and that is amazing for the sport in Italy, which is still arguably in it’s primary stages, while the BBC have big plans. Once you expose women’s football to a wider audience through broadcasting, brand partnerships or fixtures at big stadiums, it pays off.

Many have been expecting this kind of breakthrough for a while and it’s about time it finally happened. But financially there must be a reason why companies such as Barclays, which announced its £10m sponsorship of the Women’s Super League this week, and Nike have chosen this moment to show their full commitment. These brands make these decisions because they know their consumer base has an appetite for women’s sport.

There is a huge opportunity to distribute the benefits of the big deals and create longevity and sustainable models. The title sponsorship deal that the Football Association has signed for the WSL should allow every team in the league to have increased budgets. Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City already have budgets surpassing £1m per year so arguably a multimillion-pound spo

sorship deal would only enhance that. Smaller teams such as Yeovil, who announced this week they are really struggling financially, need the help desperately.

I played in America, where there was a lot of money but no sustainability. Two of the teams I played for, St Louis Athletica and Atlanta Beat, collapsed because there wasn’t a sustainable centralised model in place but heavy reliance on the wealth of individual owners.

The FA now has sponsorship money that it must use to help WSL clubs that are struggling. You never hear a team in the Premier League are under threat of collapsing because they have guaranteed revenue from TV rights. We need financial certainty to help the women’s game grow sustainable and self-sufficient in England.

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There is bit of cynicism about why brands are suddenly champing at the bit to invest in women’s sport. Is it because of the huge equality movement over the past couple of years or because it doesn’t actually cost very much in comparison with the brand benefit achieved?

People see a campaign by Nike to launch all the women’s jerseys for the World Cup and say: “Wow, Nike are really doing this for women’s sport.” The brand kudos and positive perception are potentially more valuable than the actual monetary investment. Whatever the reason, we have been asking for more investment from commercial partners and more TV coverage for years and I am delighted to see it happen. I believe the game will soon get to a point where having 60,000 fans at a women’s league match becomes the norm because supporters become emotionally connected to the team.

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In terms of sustainability there is a model available for the WSL that Barclays was involved in during its time as title sponsor of the Premier League: things such as giving teams who are relegated parachute payments to help soften the financial blow and distributing TV rights money equally. There is so much potential in our sport and it is amazing to see brands finally putting money where their mouths are.