Top footballer rues lack of prospects for women in Switzerland

Luana Bühler has played for Switzerland since 2018. Here she is in action against Iceland in February 2025. Gabor Baumgarten / Getty Images

The European Women’s Football Championship 2025 kicks off in Switzerland in one month. Luana Bühler is a defender in the Swiss national team, but she plays for an English club because the basis for a professional career doesn’t exist in Switzerland. She talks about opportunities, hurdles and her hopes for change.

Luana Bühler, 29, is an exception in Swiss women’s football: she can make a living from the game. Bühler has been living in London for two years, where she plays for Tottenham Hotspur. She previously played professional football in Germany for five years.

Bühler’s father was a football manager. Her five siblings, two sisters and three brothers, played football all the time at home in Altishofen, Lucerne. When her siblings, especially her older sister, started playing in a club, Luana also wanted to join.

“There weren’t any ‘girls’ teams’ back then, but that never bothered me,” she says. “I just wanted to play football.”

According to the Swiss Football Association, 338,991 people play club football in Switzerland, 12% of whom are women.

“Football is the most popular team sport for women,” says former professional player Martina Moser. Of course, there are many more male players, but the number of female players has doubled in the last 15 years, she says.

Bühler hopes Euro 2025External link “will be another platform for change in Swiss women’s football”. Although something is happening in Switzerland, she says the country is still a long way from offering equal footballing opportunities between boys and girls. “I’d like to see us tackle this as soon as possible,” she says.

Martina Moser is convinced that the European Championship will give women’s football another boost.

“After this tournament, a lot of girls will probably want to start playing football and join a club,” she says. But in order to enable more children to play club football, money must be invested in infrastructure, she says. “Unfortunately, there are waiting lists at many clubs.” The availability of football pitches and changing rooms is the main problem for many clubs.

Improved financial prospects

The path to the top in Swiss women’s football is more often characterised by chance than by structures. Bühler’s path illustrates this perfectly. As a child, she also enjoyed dancing, gymnastics, tennis, horse riding and skiing. “But for me, football was the sport that was always possible to organise for us as a large family,” she says.

From FC Schötz, she moved to FC Kriens, FC Lucerne and FC Zurich Women, before making the leap to TSG 1899 Hoffenheim in Germany. “I never thought I’d one day be able to earn money with football and make a living from it,” Bühler says. In fact, she always had an academic career in mind.

Luana Bühler has been a Swiss Abroad for seven years due to her profession as a footballer. 2024 Eurasia Sport Images

And she has also followed this path. Today, alongside her football, Bühler is studying for an MBA by distance learning. She already has a bachelor’s degree in business administration, specialising in banking and finance.

She is planning for life post-football, but the end of her professional career is not yet in sight. Thanks to improved financial prospects, playing football at professional level is now possible for longer, she says. Having children no longer necessarily means the end of her career either. 

This is a recent development, confirms Martina Moser. “Why should a woman stop playing football at the age of 25 just because she wants a baby?” She says that now, finally, points have been included in contracts that do justice to a woman as a professional athlete.

Second jobs

So are Swiss women obliged to go abroad to make a living from football? “Yes, if you want to pursue it as much as possible and make a living from it,” Bühler says. “Switzerland is still a long way from being somewhere where female footballers can make a living,” she says. Most female Super League players in Switzerland work an extra job to make ends meet.

There are no salary statistics for women’s football, but a statement made by national team captain Lia Wälti to CH MediaExternal link gives an idea of salaries in women’s football. Wälti – who plays for top English club Arsenal, making her one of the highest-paid Swiss players – revealed that in Switzerland she would earn more in a well-paid sales job.

Kai Reusser / SWI swissinfo.ch

Luana Bühler is very interested in finances – not least because of her studies. She invests part of her salary in a private pension. She says that finances are also being discussed more and more within the national team. “I’m particularly pleased for the younger players. They realise early on in their careers what happens if they don’t start looking after their money until they’re 30.” 

Stricter visa conditions since Brexit

Emigrating to England was a big step for Bühler, not only because of the distance, but also culturally and professionally.

In southern Germany, everything was still similar to Switzerland. Life in London, on the other hand, is different. “I’ve learnt to appreciate many things about Switzerland more,” she says, for example being near family, the transport options, the administrative matters, the nature. She says an additional challenge in England is finding fresh food. “I’ve now found my places where there are fresh vegetables,” she says.

Luana Bühler lives with her boyfriend just outside London. Courtesy picture

Bühler has a residence permit in England as a “sportsperson”. There are requirements for this visa that one has to fulfil as a sportsperson. For example, points for the previous employer or actual playing time in the current season are counted. “The requirements have become stricter since Brexit,” she says.

Skiing is taboo

Professionally, life has also become much stricter for Bühler in England. “In Germany we worked towards professional structures, but in England they are implemented.”

Bühler, who also worked as a ski instructor before her career, is not allowed on the slopes in her free time – her contract forbids it. “In Germany, they still said that Swiss women almost had to be allowed to do that,” she says and laughs.

The clause is common in professional sport and doesn’t bother Bühler: She says she invests a lot of energy and time in football and doesn’t want to jeopardise that. She adds that in skiing the risk isn’t just on you.

Now she is looking forward to Euro 2025 at home. The national squad will be announced on June 23. There is a good chance that Bühler will be called up.

“Playing in a home European Championship is probably the biggest highlight of a female player’s career,” says Martina Moser. Women’s football and its players can make a statement on and off the pitch.

Edited by Balz Rigendinger. Translated from German by DeepL/ts