FourFourTwo November 2020 59MOREOn FOURFOURTWO.COM
- Why women’s football was banned for
50 years – and is only just recovering now
(by Carrie Dunn) - Lyon Féminin: meet the most dominant
team in world football (by Amy Raphael) - Predicted: FFT’s 2020-21 Women’s Super
League table (by Natasha Henry)
WSL
for 2019 shows that only one made a profit:
Manchester United, who reported a £51,000
boon in their first campaign as a relaunched
Championship club. The losses ranged from
£36,000 (Aston Villa) to just over £1 million
(Manchester City and Everton), and they are
set to increase in 2020 following a frenzied
period of investment and a calendar struck
by the pandemic.
These are hardly astronomical figures for
rich men’s clubs, capable of absorbing such
blows like a heavyweight boxer taking on
Michael Gove, but there is an understandable
intent for women’s teams to fight their own
corners in the long-term.
“We didn’t have a lead commercial partner
when I took over the job in 2018, so we were
delighted to sign Barclays pretty early on,”
says the FA’s Kelly Simmons, regarding the
three-year partnership worth £10m, which
granted clubs a £500,000 prize pot. “We’re in
the market for our new TV deal, too, which is
a big moment in the game. We want to use it
to build audiences and grow revenues – it’s
the next major milestone. We’re also focused
on increasing the FA Cup’s profile, because
Vitality are on board as a sponsor. The BBC
have really upped their commitment to show
live games and that’s been great.” The Beeb
televised a fixture from every stage between
the fourth round proper and final in 2020.
InAugust,theFAagreeda partnership
withAtalantaMediaforWSLmatchestobe
broadcastinGermany,ItalyandtheUnited
States,followingpreviousdealswithOptus
Sports(Australia),Scandinavianbroadcaster
NENTandSkyMexico.Furtherafield,UEFA
wrappedupa five-yearpackageforPepsiCo
tosponsortheWomen’sChampionsLeague
and 2021 EuropeanChampionship.
Atclublevel,becomingself-sustainingis no
pipedream.ManchesterCity’sMakel,while
admittingtheyhavenospecifictarget,says,
“Whenwesetout,weprobablywantedto
doit withinfiveyears,butthatwaswithout
knowingthegrowthwouldbethisbig.We’re
onthecuspofsomebigthings– commercial
deals,butalsomoremajortournaments:the
Olympics,anda homeEurosthat’llgenerate
evenmoreattentionforthewomen’sgame.”Right now, as with most new businesses,
it’s about spending to accumulate.
“Salaries are going up, costs are going up,
and they need to – with an increase in salary,
you get better players,” says Everton’s Little.
“That gives us exposure, which allows us to
secure better commercial deals. It’s a tough
situation: you need the investment to make
teams and the league better, which will then
affect the commercial deals we can get. It’s
those you need to make clubs sustainable.”
In the Championship, business models vary
from full-time clubs like newly-professional
Leicester to ambitious fan-owned projects
such as Lewes and the London City Lionesses,
who broke away from cash-strapped Millwall
in 2019 with investment from financial tech
firm SETL. But however each team is set up,
optimism is catching on everywhere.
“I look at what’s happened in women’s
tennis over the last 30-40 years, and I don’t
see why women’s football can’t emulate it,”
says Makel. “I think we’ve eradicated some
perceptions of what women’s football was.
People are waking up to the fact that the
game is high-level and elite.”
“We want Evertonians to come because
it’s their team, but also because it’s great
football,” says Little, clearly in agreement.
“I do feel that message has been missing in
women’s football – you’re coming to watch
internationals. We want to start engaging
more with fans who go to games for those
reasons, and that’s when attendances will
increase, in my opinion.”
The evidence is there that clubs are all-in,
then – and soon, the Premier League could
follow suit. Back in June, its chief executive
Richard Masters aired his desire to “assume
responsibility” of the women’s game in the
future, and it’s something FA chief Simmons
admits is possible.
“It just shows you how much the WSL has
developed, and what an exciting competition
it has become,” she enthuses to FFT. “The FA
have gone on record as saying that we don’t
envisage running the league long-term. We
have helped to create it with clubs, and it’s
in a development phase which we’re happy
to support until we agree with them on the
best long-term option. That might be the
Premier League or as a more independent
entity, like in the States [with the NWSL]. It’s
well documented that there is interest from
private equity, although there are a number
of models it could evolve into.”
Whatever the Women’s Super League does
become in the long-term, its players won’t be
training at the roadside any time soon.In JUnE, THE PREMIER LEAGUE’S
CHIEF EXEC AIRED HIS DESIRE TO
“ASSUME RESPOnSIBILITY” OF
WOMEn’S FOOTBALL In EnGLAnD
Below Chelsea’s
Kerr keeps her cool
despite marginal
encroachment on
her penalty kick...