New season is here with more teams, a bold disruptor and a thrilling title race in prospect, writes Jessy Parker Humphreys
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In a podcast clip that circulated at the end of last season, the former Charlton Athletic CEO Charlie Methven said of women’s football, “You’re looking at double-digit declines in attendance at a time where we are being told that this is a booming growth story.”
“I’ve been a bit wary to talk about this,” Methven said at the start of his Business of Sport podcast before arguing that the growth of women’s football was being drastically overstated. He cited a decline in attendance figures as a shocking secret lurking at the back of women’s football, which was being covered up for some reason.
The clip was shared thousands of times, drawing in reaction from concerned women’s football fans and online trolls using it as proof that the women’s game is a psyop.
The popularity of the clip was because it got to the heart of one of the dominant questions of the Women’s Super League (WSL), one that has never felt more polarising than at the start of this new season: how much should a team invest?
Much of football finance is detached from economic reality but that does not stop the same kind of household economic theory used to justify government austerity from regularly being applied to women’s football teams, regardless of whether they are attached to behemothic Premier League spending machines.
Some teams now make eight-figure losses. Some generate eight-figure revenues. Some have invested heavily in infrastructure. Some have made the decision that now is the time to balance the books. The sheer variety of economic models present in the WSL is part of what makes it so fascinating, even if it tends to get subsumed into hand-wringing concern.
That is demonstrated best in the cases of London City Lionesses and Manchester United. On the one hand, Michele Kang’s side are playing football’s greatest hits when it comes to fast, profligate spending. Meanwhile, United appear to have thrown in the towel, deciding that they will never be able to catch the top three of Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal, and pivoting to using younger (read: cheaper) players.
It seems obvious from Jim Ratcliffe’s pronouncements that he has little interest in women’s football or sport. The debate will take on a new twist this season as a result of two changes: an expansion of the league to 14 teams and the introduction of financial sustainability regulations.
The expansion marks a welcome return to top-flight football for Birmingham City and Charlton, who were promoted with Crystal Palace at the end of last season. Birmingham and Charlton were trailblazers in women’s club football when it was in its infancy, and it is gratifying to see women’s clubs associated with men’s Championship sides still competing at the very top.
Charlton’s women’s team were disbanded after the men were relegated from the Premier League, which happened on the same day that the women contested the 2007 FA Cup final. They returned to the top flight in equally dramatic fashion after beating Leicester City on penalties in the inaugural WSL play-off, in which the WSL2’s third-placed team faced off against the WSL’s bottom one.
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Birmingham City, meanwhile, were relegated in 2021-22 after a drawn-out decline when players were forced to write to the club complaining about the conditions in which they were expected to compete. Ever since Knighthead Capital Management took over the club, in the guise of Shelby Companies Ltd, investment has flowed back, culminating in ownership stakes being taken in the women’s team specifically by their most famous alumna, Karen Carney, and the former tennis world No 1 Kim Clijsters.
The financial sustainability regulations should also change how teams choose to invest, putting, as they do, a limit – albeit a generous one – on liquidity top-ups from parent companies. That kind of investment has been crucial for Chelsea and Arsenal in recent years and should encourage teams to look at different ways of boosting their women’s team’s value.
It is notable that two of the league’s rising middle classes in Brighton and Tottenham have both been working on significant infrastructure projects to benefit their women’s sides. In Brighton’s case, it is the development of their own ground, next door to the American Express Stadium, at an expected cost of £80m.
Tottenham’s own proposal has run aground after their planning permission for a bespoke women’s and girls’ training centre was revoked by a High Court judge last month.
As for the top, the best three sides in the league are as obvious on paper as they are difficult to distinguish between. Manchester City ended Chelsea’s six-year stranglehold on the trophy last season but may struggle to balance the demands of domestic competitions with Champions League football.
Chelsea, meanwhile, are showing signs of being humbled. Erin Cuthbert, their midfielder, described the team as “spoiled” when it came to their long run of success. That motivation, along with the exciting additions of Katie McCabe and Melvine Malard, should make them title challengers once again.
Arsenal are the most mysterious of the big three. Champions League winners two seasons ago, they have proven they can regularly beat the world’s best sides, and feel like obvious favourites for the title at the start of every campaign. Yet it has been seven years since they last won it, despite significant spending and the benefit of the women’s game’s biggest fanbase.
They have perused the transfer window with all the vim of your uncle at a car boot sale, in the hope that experienced former WSL free agents such as Georgia Stanway and Ona Batlle will make them a more reliable force in the league.
Debates over spending will rage on, not least between the supporters of different teams. The reason why some in the women’s game get so focused on finance is simply fear that this league, which has been supercharged over the past decade, and which showcases some of the highest quality women’s sport that can be experienced globally, may disappear overnight based on the whims of those who run the clubs.
It is to be hoped that those fears do not override the feeling of joy that should surround a league that gets better and better every year, profligate spending and all.