New era, new challenges as Women’s Super League goes it alone

Norbiton might seem an unlikely place for a revolution but nothing less than a new era in the history of the Women’s Super League (WSL) is in the offing at Kingsmeadow today.

The season opener between champions Chelsea and Aston Villa will be the first fixture to take place since the WSL flew the Football Association nest and became the domain of a dedicated new entity, Women’s Professional Leagues Ltd.

Nikki Doucet, formerly of Nike and Citibank, is tasked with taking women’s professional football in England to another level and has not shied away from setting a high bar. 

“The job is to create and build the most distinctive, competitive and entertaining women’s football club competition in the world,” she told the Guardian last month.

There will also be a fresh feel on the pitch following the departure of perhaps the WSL’s biggest star. Having made Chelsea champions seven times in eight years, Emma Hayes left the English game in May to coach the US women’s national team. 

That will encourage Manchester City, Arsenal and Manchester United to believe they can loosen Chelsea’s iron grip on domestic supremacy. All three clubs ran Hayes’s side close in recent years and will scent an opportunity to take their place.

With that in mind City have recruited Netherlands forward Vivianne Miedema from Arsenal, who in turn signed World Cup winning Spain star Mariona Caldentey. Her Barcelona colleague Lucy Bronze, meanwhile, has returned to the WSL to help Chelsea make it eight titles in nine years.

Even more ambitious transfers were thwarted. Arsenal made a world record bid of more than £900,000 for England midfielder Keira Walsh but could not sway Barcelona, who also retained Ballon d’Or winner Aitana Bonmati despite interest from Chelsea. 

Doucet has some important business of her own to navigate in the next few months: key broadcast and sponsor contracts which are entering their final year. 

The WSL rolled over its £8m-a-year deals with Sky and the BBC for a further season, having run out of time to clinch new agreements, but will know it is expected to improve those terms from next season.

Barclays’ title sponsorship, worth £9m a year, is also up in May and it will be no easy feat replacing a deal that even the FA considered to be generous. 

“Women’s football has to do more to prove the return on investment, so even though we have stats that are comparable to other sports, other challenger sports and other challenger brands, you’re constantly having to prove that there’s a market,” said Doucet.

“It’s different to men’s football. It’s easy to sell men’s football today. So we have to invest and learn how to talk to a fanbase that we don’t talk to normally and we have to create different content.”

Attendances are heading skywards, thanks in part to more teams playing more regularly in men’s stadia. And serious investors have joined the fray, such as women’s football pioneer Michele Kang at Championship club London City Lionesses.

The WSL and women’s sport more widely have been the subject of some bold predictions on future growth. The challenge of fulfilling them is about to kick off in earnest.