Could an England victory over Germany in the women’s European Championship final in Helsinki tonight be a breakthrough moment for the female game in this country? You can understand why there is caution beneath the optimism. In women’s football, new dawns do not always lead to bright skies.

On April Fool’s Day this year, the FA announced that budget cuts caused by the economic downturn had caused it to defer the start of a summer women’s Super League by a year, to 2011. The news caused dismay within the women’s game. They have grown tired of waiting. When Adam Crozier became FA chief executive in 2000, he presented a wide-ranging blueprint that included a professional women’s league. But Crozier resigned in 2002 and his grand schemes gathered dust.

However, women’s football is a priority for Ian Watmore, the present chief executive, and he talked this week about building on the momentum generated by England’s progression to the final and making a Super League happen at last.

“It’s a great opportunity to raise the profile,” Marieanne Spacey, the former England striker, said. “Football fans will watch any football, 12 months of the year. You could take a family of four for about £20 and see international players in a family-orientated atmosphere. It might bring in a new generation of supporters.”

Adult entry to watch Arsenal Ladies, Premier League champions for the past six seasons, is £3 — but they typically attract only 300-400 fans. “The crowds aren’t great,” Vic Akers, who stepped down in the summer after 22 years as Arsenal manager, said. “It needs to change, hopefully with a new league it will.”

The most iconic moment in women’s football is Brandi Chastain taking off her shirt to celebrate scoring the winning penalty for the United States in the 1999 World Cup in front of 90,000 fans in Pasadena, California. The surge of enthusiasm prompted the formation of a professional league, but it sustained huge losses and shut in 2003 after only three seasons.

Six years on, the US is trying again: the Women’s Professional Soccer league has just finished its first campaign. The league’s average attendance was 4,493 and televised matches attracted only about 50,000 viewers on average.

Even with an average player salary as low as $32,000 (about £19,300), none of the seven teams made a profit. Six of the England squad play there. “We need to try and limit the numbers who are leaving,” Akers said. Hope Powell’s England players are on central contracts worth £16,000 annually. “We need major sponsors, but sponsorship is hard to come by,” he added.

Akers sees Euro 2005, hosted by England, as a missed opportunity. “Sadly it didn’t sustain the interest,” he said. England’s group games were watched by an average of 23,160 people in the stadiums and 2.23 million on television, but Powell’s side did not reach the knockout phase. Viewing figures were lower for the 2007 World Cup in China and tonight’s final is the only match of the tournament screened live by the BBC.

Still, since 1993, the number of players in England has increased from 10,400 to more than 150,000. Could a revamped women’s league one day attract similar crowds and interest to, say, Coca-Cola League Two? “That probably won’t happen in the next decade but there are huge numbers playing at the grassroots level now,” Akers said. “Standards have gone through the roof.”

Spacey said: “The game’s moved on immensely compared to back in the late Eighties and early Nineties, when my mum took my England kit home to wash it after games.”