In just 25 years, women’s football in Lanzarote has grown from zero registered players to 450, with six senior teams and a grassroots structure that now allows girls to dream of combining university studies with a future in the professional game.
At the turn of the millennium, federated women’s football on the island simply did not exist. But with the arrival of new inter-island and provincial competitions in the early 2000s, the first women’s sides began to appear: Orientación Marítima, CD Lomo, CD Tinajo and the then CD Tías, all founded within clubs already established in the men’s game.
Today, the picture looks very different. During the 2025– 26 season, six senior teams are competing across official leagues, underlining how firmly women’s football has taken root on the island. CD Orientación Marítima, the first Lanzarote women’s side to compete in the Copa de la Reina, plays in the Liga Preferente Femenina alongside CD Tinajo and Inter Playa Honda. Meanwhile, Sporting Tías, FC Puerto del Carmen and CD Lomo compete in the Primera Femenina Lanzarote-Fuerteventura. Other projects, including the women’s section of U.D. Lanzarote and Maciot Sport, have disappeared along the way.
Few people have been more closely linked to that growth than Jack Talbot, a central figure in women’s football on the island for more than two decades. His description of the sport’s development as ‘strong and steady’ is reflected in the numbers: Lanzarote now has around 450 active registered players. Between 120 and 140 make up the island’s six senior squads, while around 300 girls and teenagers are coming through the youth and development ranks.
The biggest transformation, however, has come at grassroots level. This year saw the launch of Liga FUTureFEM Las Palmas, a competition created by the Inter-Island Federation for girls aged twelve to eighteen. Julio Cabrera, assistant coach at CD Puerto del Carmen alongside Talbot, explains that the league covers the Infantil, Cadete, and Juvenil age groups, allowing younger players to develop ‘without having to compete against adult footballers in their thirties’.
One of those players is fourteen-year-old Inés Cabrera, already thinking about what comes next. ‘When this competition finishes, I want to carry on playing at a higher level,’ she says, ‘although where I end up will depend on my studies because I want to go to university.’ A self-confessed Atlético Madrid supporter, she dreams of one day playing professionally, ideally for Atlético, and, as a midfielder herself, names Aitana Bonmatí and Jennifer Hermoso among the creative midfielders she most admires.
