With just two days to go until Digital Sport London’s July panel discussion, we caught up with Adrian Farina, Head of Marketing – Europe, Visa, to chat about the event.

Back in London after the World Cup in France, he is keen to strike while the iron is hot in order to promote women’s football and help it fulfill its obvious potential. Much like us here at Digital Sport.

Speaking about the mantra in the Visa offices ahead of the tournament, where the company was an active worldwide sponsor, he said the company spoke of “getting ready for July 8th,” referring to the day after the World Cup final. The media coverage an outpouring of public interest around the world in this tournament has been a joy to watch, but despite the growing hype the question is what happens now?

There’s a risk that the positive energy gets lost and the World Cup forgotten, especially when football fans turn their attention to the return of the men’s club game and the seemingly all-powerful Premier League.

They fought. We believed. Congrats to the @USWNT on capturing their unprecedented 4th FIFA Women’s World Cup™️ title. Simply incredible!

Visa. Proud partner of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019™️. pic.twitter.com/VrwXG195ii

— Visa (@Visa) July 7, 2019

Part of Visa’s approach to activating their sponsorship for this World Cup was the initiating of media partnerships around the world, notably in the UK with Sky Sports and the Guardian, where the brand was able to support coverage of the event by helping publishers to cover it properly.

“Media partnerships are one of the ways in which Visa wants to help break the vicious cycle in women’s Football,” said Farina.

“Increasing coverage provides exposure to women’s football, so we chose to invest in publishers who have committed to writing more about the sport. Only a very small percentage of football writing is centered around women’s football and how do you change that? By providing advertising dollars to support those publishers and writers who will cover it.”

The work to increase interest and exposure for women’s football doesn’t end with a record-breaking World Cup. It may take four years for viewing figures to reach the same levels again at the next edition of the tournament, but in the meantime there’s plenty that can be done to grow the game.

We hope to see you on Thursday night to continue the conversation.

See Adrian speak at Thursday night’s Digital Sport London alongside Robin Clarke, SVP International at Endeavor; Lisa Parfitt, Managing Director at Engine Sport; and Bruna Zanin-Juresic, Sports Partnerships Manager at Twitter give their views on what the industry does next to promote women’s football. Asking the questions will be the Chair of the Football Writers’ Association, Carrie Brown.

Grab your ticket below: