Football's female champions enjoy a final bittersweet victory

When Mohamed Al Fayed took over Fulham Football Club six years ago, he planned to turn the team into "the Manchester United of the south".

The men, who risked being relegated from the Premiership until they won on Saturday, have fallen short of the Egyptian magnate's lofty ambitions. But the women have risen to the challenge, as they demonstrated yesterday in retaining the FA Cup. They became the second team in the history of the female game in England to complete the treble – the League, the League Cup and the FA Cup.

Yet their 3-0 win over Charlton at Selhurst Park, broadcast live on the BBC, was their last as a professional team, the only professional women's team in Europe.

Fulham's straitened financial circumstances, allied to the reluctance of any other club to follow their lead of going full-time, has meant that Mr Fayed's gamble has failed to pay off.

Gaute Haugenes, the manager of the women's team, will be returning to Norway this summer to take up a coaching position with a local Third Division men's side, despite seeing his team go unbeaten in any competition for two years.

Fulham, meanwhile, are losing four of their best players to foreign clubs more able to keep them in the manner to which they have become accustomed. These players include Haug-enes's wife, Margunn, and the England centre-forward Kristy Moore, who opened the scoring in yesterday's final.

But if the women's game in this country is not yet able to take the leap into full-time professionalism, it continues to take large steps in terms of participation – so much so that the Football Association now describes it as England's leading female sport.

The number of FA-affiliated female teams has almost doubled in the past year, rising from 2,200 to 4,200. Ten years ago there were 11,000 players; today 85,000 are regularly playing. A recent survey revealed that as many as 1.4 million girls aged under 15 play football on a frequent basis.

Those are the kind of figures that have drawn the attention of the BBC, which gained an audience of 2.5 million when it first broadcast the women's FA Cup final last season as part of a three-year contract. The figures also hold out hope that England can regain the standing they once enjoyed in world football before other teams such as Germany and Brazil – who can field Milene Dominques, wife of the Brazilian footballer Ronaldo – came along to push up the standards.

Defeat in a play-off with France means England will take no part in this year's World Cup finals, switched this weekend from China to the United States because of the Sars epidemic. The goal now is the European Championships in 2005, where England qualify automatically as hosts.

Fulham overwhelmed Charlton yesterday, and no one was more dejected than Charlton's keeper Pauline Cope, capped 57 times for her country. The 34-year-old had been seeking her fourth winning medal with as many different teams, but her day ended with frustration and a booking for dissent. You can question the finances of the women's game, apparently, but don't question the passion.