England’s World Cup victory over Scotland breaks record for most-watched women’s game in the UK as 6.1MILLION viewers tune in
- Sunday’s match in Nice attracted a peak of 6.1million watching on television
- England made a winning start to campaign as they beat debutants Scotland 2-1
- Phil Neville’s England face Argentina in their second Group D match on Friday
England’s win over Scotland in the Women’s World Cup was the UK’s most watched women’s football match of all time, with a peak 6.1m audience – three times bigger than the men commanded for their Nations League win over Switzerland
The figure for the home nations’ World Cup opener – 37.8 per cent of the available audience – comfortably beat the previous best 4m, for England’s Euro 2017 semi-final against Holland.
The average audience throughout the Scotland game was 4.7m.
A record 6.1million viewers watched England’s victory over Scotland in Women’s World Cup – Nikita Parris (right) is pictured celebrating her opening goal in Nice
Though the men’s Nations League third-place play-off against the Swiss was only available on Sky Sports pay-per-view, the numbers were far lower with a peak of 1.89m.
The average audience figure for the men was 1.07m, less than a quarter of the women’s game equivalent.
Manager Phil Neville said after the 2-1 win that the cooler climate in Le Havre, where they face Argentina on Friday, ‘might suit us.’
Claire Emslie (No 18) pulled a goal back for Scotland but England held after going two up
But he said a lesson would be learned from the way the team tired against the Scots.
Neville said: ‘That’s a learning curve for us, about managing our energy through the game.
‘The substitution of [defender] Millie [Bright, with a shoulder injury] threw us because the plan was to bring one midfielder and two forwards on to give a little more energy up front because we press from the front but Millie coming off gave us something else to consider which was disappointing.’
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