"VAN" (Sports Desk - 25.04.2026) :: With 8311 fans attending the Women’s Polish Cup semifinal, a new attendance record for Polish club women’s football has been set. This marks a new milestone in the development of women’s football in the country.
RECORD NIGHT AT CITY STADIUM The bar for the record was not set very high with 4474 fans attending the last matchday of 2024/2025 league season when GKS Katowice celebrated the title at the newly built Arena Katowice (also set to host this year’s FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup). But despite only three weeks between the surprisingly won quarterfinal and the semifinal game, which was little time to promote the event at the main stadium, the expectations were high – the aim was to beat the attendance record, maybe even doubling it.
Although it was not the first ever game of the female team of Lech Poznań (as Lech Poznań UAM due to the cooperation with Adam Mickiewicz Univeristy) at the main stadium, the previous one took place almost 2,5 years ago – the debut season of the team in the second-tier league, losing 0:6 to regional rival of Polonia Środa Wielkopolska. The second round of 23/24 season saw 10 victories of Lech UAM and raised the expectations of the promotion to the top-tier Ekstraliga, which happened in 24/25 season – but without a single game played at the Poznań City Stadium (Enea Stadion for sponsorship reasons).
INFRASTRUCTURAL OBSTACLES ON THE WAY Due to the licence regulations, the pitch on the university campus could not have hosted the games in the Ekstraliga (the requirements for the infrastructure are set on the level of men’s fourth-tier league in Poland). Thus the female team saw three options: the smaller pitch on the eastern side of the city, which is managed by the municipal entity, the club’s facilities in Wronki, about 60 km away from Poznań itself, and the stadium in the neighbouring village of Plewiska, known from hosting the youth compeititon qualification games. The latter became the home of Lech UAM for the Ekstraliga games, as explained in spring 2025, as this is the closest to City Stadium’s training facilities, where the female team was to have trained.
That did not happen – the main training facility of Lech UAM is still the campus pitch on far north of the city. The pitch with an artificial grass, when most of the Ekstraliga pitches (including the home one in Plewiska) is the natural grass. Also the plans of adjusting one of the training pitches near the City Stadium – officially within a year, unofficialy within one and a half, realistically in two – do not seem to have been pushed forward to the realization phase.
THE TURNING POINT IN THE WOMEN’S GAME The game was visited by the club’s senior officials, city representatives and the men’s team players and coach. The players of the men’s team, leading in the men’s Ekstraklasa league table, engaged into the promotion of their women’s fellow team. This included Iran national Ali Gholizadeh, whose wife Yasaman is a football player herself (currently on maternity). The men’s teams representatives engagement caused also the Ekstraklasa’s social media to join the promotion of the game. The action was unprecedented in Poland – during their debut at EURO last year in Switzerland the men’s national team players did not bother to send the words of support via their social media (with the honourable exception of Jakub Kamiński).
The earlier record in Katowice had also shown the importance of promotion of the game – as the celebration of the already secured championship title – it was seen as exceptional in Polish women’s football. The citizens of Katowice noticed a locally targeted posts in the social media and recognized the usage of the new city stadium (the men’s team was moved there while the women’s became the main beneficient of the older one). Arena Katowice also saw GKS battling in the UEFA Women’s Champions League qualification against FC Twente and the UEFA Women’s Europe Cup qualifier against BK Häcken. The two brands recognized in the women’s football, but not a big magnet for the fans where the awareness of women’s football reality is just building. The record was not beaten, to say the least.
THE FANS DID THEIR JOB – HOW ABOUT THE CLUB? Poznań went a step or even two further with this year’s cup semifinal game and despite the result painful again, although the game was not that one-way as the 0:5 loss would say. But the result of 8311 fans attending the game on a stadium was far more important. And even more than just attending – the doping lasted for the entire game, until the final whistle and even beyond. This was a clear signal there is a place for women’s football in Poznań.
The club’s governance which so far treated it’s women’s team as the secondary will have to revise its approach. The training facility issues or the situation when the club did not apply for the government funding in the programme dedicated to youth academy teams (they did apply for the men’s youth however) cannot happen anymore and the fans will have more to say with bigger awareness of women’s team and – hopefully for the fans – the sports level development of the players led by coach Alicja Zając.
And just as in Bremen the Werder fans are calling for more women’s games at the Weserstadion (the winter caused the postponement of two games against Wolfsburg and Bayern at Platz 11), the fans in Poznań are expected to demand more engagement and more investment for their women’s team. Especially with the biggest domestic rival, Legia, expected to join Ekstraliga this year. As the second-tier club they already show a huge investment. Fans of Lech won’t accept forfeiting the race against Legia for being the dominant side in the country on the women’s football field.
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