Scrapping relegation can help WSL dodge trap set by men’s football
The WSL’s new leadership deserves credit for seriously considering ditching relegation in pursuit of a firmer financial footing for women’s football, writes Ed Warner.
Manchester City have sacked their head coach with hopes of Champions League qualification this season fading and only cup dreams to cling to. No, not Pep Guardiola, but Gareth Taylor, now no longer in charge of City’s women’s team.
His departure comes as WSL clubs and their new ruling body, WPLL, mull a temporary pause to relegation. Once again, women’s football is caught in a trap set by the men’s game.
“Manchester City prides itself on competing at the top of the WSL and on its outstanding record of qualifying for European competition. Unfortunately, results this season have not reached this high standard.”
Charlotte O’Neill, Manchester City women’s MD
The WSL currently consists of a dozen clubs; the Championship a further 11. Plans are said to be afoot to expand the top flight to 16 teams via ‘one up, none down’ between the two divisions over the next four seasons.
Cue football traditionalists attacking the disappearance of relegation jeopardy as a break in the sanctity of the pyramid which they see as the inviolable essence of English football’s popularity.
Closing off the WSL has been mooted for some time, most publicly by Tottenham’s chairman Daniel Levy.
Critics claim this is evidence of the largest clubs looking after No1 at the expense of the wider women’s game. Proponents argue that the money necessary to grow that game is substantial – with no realistic prospect of a near-term return – and that relegation fears hold back investment.
The WSL already resembles a mini men’s Premier League. All 12 clubs operate under Premier League labels. By contrast, only two of the Women’s Championship clubs do.
As money has flowed into the leading clubs, so the WSL has become bifurcated, a gulf opening up between the top four teams and the rest. Expansion to 16 clubs could see the likes of London City Lionesses and Durham join the elite in coming years. Who, though, would bet against Premier League names filling all the slots in time?
Increasing the field would be a bold move for the WSL given the lack of traction in attendances for the majority of matches in the league.
Tens of thousands attending the minority of games played at clubs’ iconic stadia only diverts from the reality of far smaller crowds at the lesser venues used most of the time. And this in spite of a surge in media coverage for the competition at the expense not so much of men’s football as other sports.
WSL attendances average under 7,000 per game this season, with crowds at only Arsenal and Chelsea in double digit thousands. That puts it somewhere between men’s League One and League Two. Remarkable given where the women’s game has come from in recent years, but a shallow underpinning for an expansion plan.
While it is unsurprising that leading men’s clubs are now dominating the WSL given their comparative wealth, those wanting the women’s game to mirror the men’s may be condemning it to a more perilous financial existence.
After all, the lesson from all sports is that a single elite division is hard enough to sustain, let alone two or more. Indeed, only football in Britain is able to support a top flight of as many as 16 clubs, putting the WSL’s ambitions into a sobering context.
For elite women’s football to thrive, it needs new, committed followers. It can’t rest on casual interest from men’s clubs’ fans. And thankfully a dedicated fan base has been growing.
The challenge remains to convert those rocking up occasionally to the biggest venues into hardy perennial supporters keen to go through the turnstiles at the regular, smaller stadia.
By extension, there is no necessity for every Premier League team to have a successful women’s counterpart. Concentrate fandom over fewer clubs and each can be stronger and more sustainable.
It may seem heretical for allegiances within a family unit, say, to stretch across more than one club brand to cater for interest in both the men’s and women’s game, but wouldn’t that be preferable to the latter leading a shadow existence?
Women’s football needs bold business plans, unshackled from the traditional thinking that shapes the men’s game. If a pausing – or even cessation – of relegation might generate a financially more resilient future, then credit to WPLL’s leadership for giving the proposition serious consideration.
For the record, the six Premier League clubs with no presence in either the WSL or Women’s Championship are Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth, Fulham, Brentford, Wolves and Ipswich. YouTuber-created Hashtag United are currently closing in on promotion to the Championship.
Jewels and jumps
Could this week’s interviews be Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Gerald Ratner moment? The high street jewellery magnate famously cratered the business that carried his name, and his own reputation, by referring to one of his chain’s products as “total crap” way back in 1991.
Ratcliffe has taken the time-honoured business approach of talking down his inheritance to make any eventual recovery in fortunes look all the more heroic.
But sport isn’t chemicals, or £4.95 sherry decanters for that matter, and labelling players “overpaid” and “not good enough”, even if now farmed out on loan, is dangerous territory. Quite the time too to unveil plans for a £2bn stadium seemingly styled by Billy Smart.
As an aside, and in the context of the analysis above, the BBC has quoted Ratcliffe upholding the importance of United’s women’s team, especially as they wear the club’s badge. Tellingly, though, he did state:
“Of our £650m of income, £640m comes from the men’s team and £10m comes from the women’s team. With my business background you tend to focus on the bigger issues before you focus on the smaller issues.”
From a PR perspective, I was more impressed to read Guy Lavender, newly arrived from the MCC to be chief executive at Cheltenham Racecourse, acknowledging the challenge of reversing the decline in attendances at its Festival over recent years.
“The decline is not catastrophic but nor are we seeing growing attendances. I am sure that this will result in some commentary,” he said. “However, if there is one thing I want those reading this to take away, it is that we will define success this week and beyond by whether we are delivering unforgettable days out for our customers and improving the experience for everyone in attendance and watching on at home.”
I’ll return to the question of Cheltenham Festival crowds next week.
Through a glass darkly
A week until the International Olympic Committee presidential election and anyone who claims to know the outcome is a fantasist.
As I’ve written before, the early rounds of voting require the seven candidates to muster enough supporters not to be dropped from the race; the final rounds to minimise effective votes against. Overall, they must be rounded candidates, distinctive enough to have core backers but bland enough not to generate anti-votes if they reach the pointy end of the contest.
No surprise then that the seven have tried to cover all bases in their pronouncements in recent weeks. Hard to see beyond a Coe v Samaranch final round, but what do I know?
Ed Warner is chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby and writes his sport column at sportinc.substack.com