Last night showed how far the women’s team has come. The club needs to do more for them.

Last night, as most people will know, our women’s team faced off against Chelsea in the Women’s Champions League.

I watched the game, and although our team was outplayed for much of the match, they gave a commendable account of themselves, especially considering this is their first time on this stage. Chelsea’s women’s team is one of the best in the world, so the fact that, with a touch more composure, we might have taken something from the game is hugely impressive.

There are, however, a couple of talking points beyond the match itself, which tie into recent discussions on infrastructure—and also open up a debate about television coverage.

The reason we could watch last night’s game was because it was aired live on TNT Sports. This was a change, as none of our previous Champions League matches have been on TNT or anywhere else for that matter. I’ve argued before that Celtic should be doing more to show these games live if broadcasters aren’t interested in picking them up.

There may be contractual issues with TNT holding the rights, but the reality is that they aren’t particularly interested in broadcasting non-English games. The only reason we saw last night’s match was because we happened to be playing an English club.

This is yet another example of Scottish football fans being treated as second-rate by broadcasters. It’s shocking that we had to wait until we faced an English club to see one of these games. If you watched last night’s match, you would have seen the impressive attendance at Celtic Park. That crowd is a clear sign of how many fans would tune in if these matches were regularly shown live. We’ve seen strong viewing figures when women’s games are shown on BBC Alba in the league, so there’s undoubtedly an audience for Champions League coverage.

I hope that last night’s game attracted solid viewing figures to underscore the need for more coverage of our women’s team. It’s frankly poor that it’s taken this long to see our women’s side featured on a premium channel.

There was a time when all of our women’s games, along with B team matches, would have been available live on CelticTV. I understand there are licensing issues, especially for certain competitions, and while I like the format of CelticTV, there’s a long way to go to bring it up to the standard we’d all like. Expanding CelticTV’s appeal means offering more live content, and I think the club needs to seriously consider this for the future.

There’s another point on our women’s team and B team that circles back to our recent discussions on club infrastructure: the Barrowfield project. We’ve invested significantly in upgrading the training facilities there, but decided not to build a stand or give fans a chance to watch games on-site. I have some reservations about this.

Currently, for women’s matches, we pay to use another club’s stadium rather than building a dedicated facility of our own. I’m not sure this is cost-effective, even in the short term, though others will know the financial specifics better. Yes, constructing a stand would be costly, but if we had our own dedicated facility, we wouldn’t be renting from others. To me, that just makes sense. I see this as a sensible long-term goal, and not pursuing this aspect of the Barrowfield project is my only quibble with an otherwise excellent initiative.

The commentary team last night had high praise for the Celtic support, for our women’s team, and for the standard of football we played. What I found interesting was their recognition that we’re on a different journey than English clubs, who have been investing heavily in women’s football for much longer. English clubs have had professional women’s teams for years, putting them ahead in terms of development. So, credit to our girls for holding their own against one of Europe’s top teams—it bodes well for the future.

It was also excellent that the match took place at Celtic Park, giving as many fans as possible the chance to attend. A game of this calibre belongs on the big stage, and the strong turnout showed just how far the women’s game has come at Celtic and how integrated it’s become with the wider club. All in all, it was a night that did us proud.

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