Women’s Super League chief paid £531,000 as it made £2.4m loss
The highest earner at the independent company set up to run the Women’s Super League, believed to be chief executive Nikki Doucet, was paid £531,000 as it made a £2.4m loss.
Accounts published by Companies House reveal the finances in the first year of Women’s Super League Football Limited, which took over management of the top two divisions in 2024.
WSLF recorded revenue of £17.4m for the year ending July 2025, made up mostly of £8.7m from media rights contracts with Sky and the BBC and £8.5m in sponsorship and licensing deals with partners including Barclays, Apple and Nike.
Expenses totalled £22.3m, among the largest of which were £9.4m in distributions to its member clubs and £4.3m in salaries and other staff costs, including £679,000 to its directors.
It resulted in an operating loss of £8.2m and a pre-tax loss of £3.1m which, after tax credits were applied, reduced to £2.4m.
The highest-paid director, which sources told CityAM was CEO Doucet, received a package worth £531,000, including pension benefits.
That sum equates to three per cent of WSLF’s total revenue. The chief executive of the Premier League, Richard Masters, was paid £1.98m, or 0.05 per cent of its revenue in 2024, the most recent year for which accounts are publicly available.
It is also more than the £490,000 reported to be the salary of the WSL’s highest-paid player, Chelsea striker Sam Kerr.
WSL grapples with capitalising on Lionesses
WSLF drew down further on its £20m interest-free loan facility from the Premier League in 2024-25, taking its borrowing to £6.1m.
The Women’s Super League has established itself as the world’s highest-profile and most commercially successful in the game over the last decade.
Its uncoupling from the Football Association in 2024 coincided with a raising of minimum standards across the top two divisions, resulting from Karen Carney’s review.
That evolution has been overseen by former Citigroup investment banker and Nike executive Doucet, who was appointed the first CEO of WSLF Ltd in 2023.
The WSL faces a challenge to convert interest in England’s national team into regular engagement with domestic club football, however.
Despite the Lionesses defending their European Championship title last summer, TV viewing figures for the WSL have stagnated so far this season.
A spokesperson for WSLF said it did not comment on individual employees’ salaries.