Teams battling relegation ask for ‘fair fighting chance of staying' in WSL amid widening gap

New York Times

08-03-2025

What goes up must come down. At least that is how it appears to be in the Women's Super League (WSL).
Crystal Palace edged out south London rivals Charlton Athletic by a point to win promotion last season but have since spent their time in the WSL staring at immediate relegation.
Palace are bottom of the league with six points after 15 games, having won just once. They have seven games left to catch Aston Villa or Leicester City, who sit a respective four and six points ahead of them. If their form continues they will follow in Bristol City's footsteps in the 2023-24 campaign — relegated immediately following their promotion, winning just one game all season.
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It is evidence of the difficulty in bridging the growing gap between the top two leagues.
The last three clubs to be promoted to the top tier were Liverpool (2022), Bristol City (2023) and Crystal Palace (2024), representatives from each club spoke to The Athletic about how hard it is to make that jump.
Possibly a product of how hard this challenge is, the managers of Palace, Laura Kaminski, and Liverpool, Matt Beard, who earned promotion with their respective clubs, have since been sacked.
While the Women's Professional Leagues Limited (WPLL) — the governing body of the top two tiers in English women's football — are considering removing relegation from the WSL, it remains unclear whether this would improve the top tier's competitiveness. However, potential changes are unlikely to come into effect before the 2026-27 season or have an immediate impact on the teams who have struggled to stay in WSL in the past.
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Bristol City were relegated last season with only six points in total — nine fewer than 11th placed West Ham United.
'The Championship is a very competitive league, a good league, but it's a massive jump from/to the WSL,' said Gavin Marshall, the chief executive officer of Bristol Sports Group, which owns Bristol City, rugby union club Bristol Bears and basketball club Bristol Flyers. 'I was shocked by the jump because it was bigger from when we were last in the WSL (2020-21) — and that was only two years before'
A year on and the sentiment is the same for Palace, who are in their first season in the WSL.
'There is a huge jump,' former Palace manager Kaminski said. 'The calibre of player, the depth of the squad that's required, the physical differences in terms of the amount that you're going to need to press, the amount that you're going to need to defend, the amount that you need to run in behind.'
Is the structure of the top two leagues — under the governance of the WPLL since their takeover from the FA in August 2024 — a problem?
The WSL has had 12 teams (playing 22 games) since the 2019-20 season in which the league moved from 11 to 12. The league had expanded by one team a year since 2017 when it was still played over the summer months.
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The top tier's smaller size made sense when fewer teams were operating at a high level but many now would like to see it expand to reflect the growing competitiveness of elite women's football and to encourage more clubs to make that next step.
'It is actually harder to stay up than to go up,' said Kaminski. 'The league is too small, it would be great to see an expansion of the WSL.'
The WPLL is in its infancy and has yet to formally announce plans to adjust the top two tiers structurally or financially. This could change with the discussions around scrapping relegation. Crucially, promotion from the Women's Championship will remain so the WSL will not become closed.
'There are more teams that can come up, more teams that are ready,' former Liverpool manager Beard told The Athletic two weeks ago. Beard was then sacked with Liverpool in seventh place. 'I would like to see more teams in the Super League and I'd like to see more teams in the Championship too.'
'Twelve teams isn't enough,' Marshall said. 'The big four clubs are so far ahead of the rest so there's a lot of pressure on each game.
'You've probably got seven home games that you've got a chance of getting a result in and you can feel the pressure on the team really from the start of the season as a result of that.'
Since Manchester United's promotion into the WSL in 2020 — one season after the team was re-formed — there has only been one season in which the top four finishers were not them, Chelsea, Manchester City, and Arsenal — last term when Liverpool beat United to fourth.
The top four's dominance can be seen in the struggle for newly-promoted sides to win points against them. Including this season, the Championship winners have only gained eight points out of a possible 87, with six of those points coming from Liverpool's first campaign back in the WSL in 2022-23.
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Crystal Palace, meanwhile, scored for the first time against a top four side last month against Manchester United but eventually fell to a 3-1 defeat. They are yet to pick up a point against the top group.
With just 22 games to play, the setup does not allow much margin for error, especially for newly-promoted teams.
The transfer window before the season starts is a good opportunity to help clubs do so by improving their squads. 'When you come up from the Championship into the Super League, you need to get your recruitment right otherwise it will be a struggle,' Beard said.
It was this issue — recruitment and investment — that were factors in Beard's surprise departure from Liverpool, sources told The Athletic.
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The club still had the global appeal of the men's side and two WSL titles (2013 and 2014). For other teams trying to make that jump from the Championship that don't have that similar pull, it can be even harder.
'When you are the team (coming) up you are unproven in your capability,' Kaminski said. 'Trusting me and the club to be able to build the team that is going to compete in the early stages of the summer — it can be a challenging sell no matter who you are.'
Palace were still able to recruit players such as ex-Liverpool and USWNT under-23s player Katie Stengel, 32; Lexi Potter, 18, on loan from Chelsea and 27-year-old Shae Yanez from Bristol City. Potter became the first female player in the country to sign a professional deal at 17 with Chelsea before the 2023-24 season while Stengel and Yanez boast WSL experience.
'(To recruit players) we highlighted and really emphasised the importance of defensive shape and organisation, that gives people a sense of security and realism,' Kaminski said. 'We knew we were going up into a league with the best players in the world. So if you didn't talk about defending, you'd be in a Disneyland really.'
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Marshall also recognised the lesser pull that Bristol City had when they were promoted in 2023.
'We lost out on players where they had other options because they thought they would probably get relegated with us,' he' said. 'Players are very well aware that it's very difficult to come up (to the WSL) and establish yourself, you've probably got to be prepared to pay a premium to bring players in.'
Providing a financial incentive as a method of enticing players is not realistic for many Championship clubs.
'It comes down to money,' Marshall said. 'We know we can't compete with some of the teams financially in the WSL, it's particularly difficult if you don't have that men's team in the Premier League.
'There is also a massive gulf in terms of the coverage that the Championship gets, our attendance is only 30 per cent of the value that they were when we were in the WSL.'
A record broadcasting deal will improve the coverage in the second tier and boost coffers.
Sky Sports and the BBC agreed a five-year, shared domestic broadcast rights deal with the WSL worth £65 million in October 2024. As part of the deal (which begins at the start of the 2025-26 season), Sky will have the option to show Championship games for the first time.
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'The league needs to expand, but it needs to be sustainable and for clubs to invest,' Kaminski said. 'We don't want to be hopping backwards and forwards every single season, you need to have a fair fighting chance of staying up.'
Liverpool have invested off the pitch and it has paid off.
In 2023, the women's team moved back into an elite training centre at Melwood, which was used by the men's team for 70 years before they moved to Kirkby.
Investment is happening in the Championship too, as can be seen by the league's top three, who are separated by six points in the race for WSL. Birmingham City, London City Lionesses and Durham are all backed by ambitious owners.
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Birmingham's co-owner Tom Wagner, of investment firm Knighthead, has pledged to back the women's side and multi-club owner Michele Kang, who bought London City Lionesses in December 2023, has set the goal of winning the WSL.
Last month Patrick and Frances Connolly, who won £115m in the 2019 EuroMillions lottery acquired a 25 per cent stake in Durham.
With seven games, and one in hand on tenth placed West Ham, left to close a four-point gap, Crystal Palace's WSL season is far from over.
'The mental challenges that we faced in the group in terms of staying motivated and confident when you're losing a run of games, it's a little bit underestimated just how hard that is,' Kaminski said. '(But) we've had one mission in mind since the start of the season. That the ambition and vision is to stay in the league.'
The team will be hoping they achieve safety under former interim Norway men's and women's manager Leif Smerud.
But there is still a way to go: for Palace and the Championship to do the same on the top tier.