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Alisha Lehmann wants to grow women's football but remains frustrated by some attitudes
Martin Macdonald
- 23 Mar 2026 09:30 CDT
- 8 min read
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She is one of the most recognisable figures in women's football but Alisha Lehmann says there are misconceptions about her due to her large social media following.
In January of 2026, Lehmann returned to English football with Leicester, having enjoyed a stint in Italy with Juventus and then Como.
In England, she previously played for West Ham, Everton and Aston Villa. At 27, she has already had an impressive career but she is known for her social media presence off the pitch as much as her performances on it.
Lehmann, born in Switzerland, has 16 million followers on Instagram and 11 million followers on TikTok. This makes for a big commitment away from football, but it can be frustrating when there is a higher focus on that than her athletic career.
"Sometimes, it's frustrating," she told BBC Sport. "People don't see the work that I put in. They think I just train and then go home to make TikToks - it's not true.
"I'm very professional. I always give everything on the pitch and I want to be the best. If I've not done my best when I check my data after training, I will do extra rounds to try to improve.
"People can think what they want but everything I do is focused on being the best player I can be."
Lehmann's posts alternate between lifestyle posts and posts relating to her football career, while her love life has also been in the spotlight as she previously dated Brazilian midfielder Douglas Luiz.
Her striking looks make her a target for both positive and negative comments online.
"When I was younger, it affected me more because I didn't know how to handle the situation," the 27-year-old confessed.
"There were moments where I was really sad and I used to ask my mum if I could not play football anymore.
"Football is the thing I love the most and it's what I have put the most time into. I rest so well, I sleep every afternoon and I would never do anything before training or a game that would affect how I play. I care so much about it.
"People don't know how much effort I actually put in when they say 'Oh, she's not a footballer'.
"But now, I'm fine. I love my life and the people around me and I don't get affected by it."
The Leicester star has spoken previously about how she wants to use her social media clout to grow the women's game as much as she can.
“England probably is the picture everyone should look at because I don’t think in other countries it increased that much," she told TalkSPORT about the increasing popularity of women's football.
“In Switzerland, for example, everyone’s still working, 90 per cent probably still work.
“I don’t think you can compare like anything between women’s and men’s football because it’s just so different how people look at us and how people look at them.
“It’s just not the same. Women’s football is always second class. I don’t think you’ll ever be first class because I think a lot of people still think that men’s football is the first priority.
“They don’t think about women’s football and I think that’s a big problem. Now social media is really helpful because people actually see, oh, we play football, we can play football.
“When they come to their first game, after they say ‘oh it’s not even that bad’ they’re surprised but people judge before they even saw the actual game.
“I don’t think this [being equal to men] will ever happen to be honest, maybe in the next 100 years but we will not be here anymore."
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