June is a huge month for Women’s football in England as the Lionesses head out to France for the Women’s World Cup. To support our national team’s campaign, this month we will be bringing back our successful Manchester FA Female Football Focus month (#MFAFFF)!

The month will celebrate female football in Manchester and focus on how our youngest female players here in Manchester can one day make it to the Lionesses squad. Nine players for this summer’s tournament come from professional Manchester clubs and we are urging Manchester to get behind the national team and show their support! 

Across the month, we’ll be covering where to start in the game for our youngest players, through to the elite and national level of the female game. We will also be taking you behind the scenes of some of the end-of-season and education events running in June, to reflect on a great 2018/19 and look at how we will develop further in 2019/20 to ensure female football grows in Manchester. 

Katherine Jones, Football Development Officer for Women & Girls, explains: “This World Cup is the biggest event in years for female football in this country and by bringing back the #MFAFFF month, we want every player, coach, referee and volunteer in the women’s game to feel connected and inspired by the tournament. We will be bringing more coverage of our Wildcats activity this month as we want players and parents to see that this is the place to start your future Lionesses career, or just give the game a go. Across the month, we will also show other ways to be involved in the game and other formats to get involved with, for every female in Manchester. 

The FA’s aim is to double participation and raise the profile of the female game, and on a county level, we have a responsibility to drive this from within grassroots football.”

Keep an eye out for some very special female-football themed competitions running on our social media channels too, which you can find here: Facebook, Twitter and on our website. We’ll be using the hashtag #MFAFFF (Manchester FA Female Football Focus) for the whole month, so be sure to use this to join in the conversation!