Women's Euro 2022: UEFA target 'records, records, records'

UEFA head of women's football, Nadine Kessler, says European football's governing body are hoping for 'records, records, records' to be set at Euro 2022, which kicks off at Old Trafford on 6 July.

Over half a million tickets have already been sold for the tournament - double the number sold for the European Championship in the Netherlands five years ago - while all-time attendance records could also be surpassed.

The record attendance for a Women's Euros match was set back in 2013, as 41,301 supporters turned out to watch Germany beat Norway to claim their eighth European title. This figure is expected to be bettered for England's opening group match against Austria at Old Trafford at Wednesday, and could be beaten once more at the Wembley final.

"We want to have a fun and inclusive environment that brings some joy to football and to society," said Kessler when asked about UEFA's aims for the tournament. "Yes, records, records, records. It's important that we have pressure, I think that was not always the case before so we can be proud of that pressure we've created around it.

"I'm a bit obsessed with the ticketing numbers, and I keep clicking through our ticketing system regularly - maybe too regularly. So we're 517,000 tickets now, a day before the opening. From 99 different countries - who would have thought that for a women's tournament? That is simply fantastic."

Question marks had been raised over whether the choice of certain venues is ambitious enough. Iceland midfielder Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir branded the use of the Academy Stadium in Manchester - which has a capacity of 4,700 - 'embarrassing'. Iceland's two group fixtures at the Academy Stadium were two of the quickest matches to sell out for the tournament.

However, UEFA Women's EURO 2022 head of tournament delivery, Chris Bryant, insisted UEFA remain happy with their choice of venues as tickets remain available for the tournament, adding selling out stadiums was the most important thing.

"We're really proud of the volume of tickets sold to date," Bryant said. "There are 200,000 roughly more tickets still available, over 700,000 tickets have been made available for the tournament so we always set the ambitions incredibly high. We're pretty happy with the venues and the selections that we've made.

"There are still more tickets to sell, we want venues to sell out, that's a huge part of our strategy, it was never just to focus on England. We always knew we had to sell out England games to move demand to the other fixtures, because we want all teams to experience a great atmosphere in all the stadiums, and we thought having the right balance of stadiums was the best way to do that."