(Bloomberg) -- The record-breaking Euro 2022 women’s football tournament was also a loss maker.

UEFA, the European footballing body, said final costs of running the three-and-a-half-week competition in England last month will likely exceed projected revenue of more than 60 million euros ($61 million).

This was in part because UEFA “decided to significantly raise the investment in the tournament to further enable the growth of women’s football,” a spokesperson for the body said in an emailed response to Bloomberg queries.

UEFA earmarked 16 million euros in prize money for the 16 teams that competed in Euro 2022, more than double the pot of the previous Euros in the Netherlands in 2017. Corporate partners, however, would only have paid a fraction of the cost of sponsoring a men’s event.

Euro 2022 was won by England, which beat Germany 2-1 in the final at London’s Wembley Stadium on Sunday. It marked the first victory at a major tournament for any English national football team since 1966.

Reaction to the competition has been overwhelmingly positive. Euro 2022 set records for attendances and television viewers that are expected to draw new fans and sponsors to women’s football.

To be sure, it will take time to match sales from the men’s equivalent competition, which drew in nearly 1.9 billion euros last year, boosted by bumper media rights and commercial revenue.

“UEFA will run a loss for this tournament, an investment we are absolutely willing and wanting to make to further grow the game,” Nadine Kessler, head of women’s football at UEFA, said ahead of Euro 2022.

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Author: David Hellier