The existential threat facing women’s football

An hour before the Premier League announced its revised fixture list the decision was taken to end the Women’s Super League season, writes Mark Critchley. It is unclear how and when the league will return

Chelsea have won the 2019/20 Women's Super League (Getty)

Only an hour before the Premier League announced its revised fixture list as part of the hotly-anticipated ‘Project Restart’, the women’s football season reached a final conclusion. The Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship had been decided on a points-per-game basis, the Football Association announced on Friday morning.

Chelsea leapfrogged Manchester City to be crowned champions, Liverpool were relegated and Aston Villa were promoted from the second tier to take their place. With that, despite there being more than a quarter of matches still to play, a season of record attendances and unprecedented publicity had ended in a boardroom.

Though disappointing, it’s hardly a surprise. The decision to curtail the season came as a relief to the many women’s clubs who winced at the cost of restarting. The financial imperatives driving ‘Project Restart’ do not yet exist in the women’s game. Finishing the season would cost money, not save it. For that reason alone, restarting was always unlikely.

It was not impossible, though. Other women’s leagues have capitalised on the appetite of sport-starved audiences and kicked back into action. In the United States, a drive for new sponsorship and broadcasting deals has powered the National Women’s Soccer League’s efforts to return. It is set to become the first US professional sports’ league – either men’s or women’s – to restart, beating the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball.

Germany’s Frauen-Bundesliga is already back, thanks to a solidarity fund paid in part by the country’s biggest men’s clubs. Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen contributed €20m in revenues earned from competing in this season’s Champions League to central pot. This allowed for women’s and lower-league men’s clubs to pay for testing and meet other pandemic-related costs, ensuring that German football could restart together as one.

There was no equivalent initiative in English football, despite the WSL being Europe’s only professional women’s league and the greater wealth at the very top of the game when compared with Germany. Lewes, a second-tier club, estimated that carrying out a full testing programme in the top two women’s divisions would cost a relatively modest £3m. A scheme to raise those funds – whether through solidarity payments, commercial drives or otherwise – never transpired.

Kelly Simmons, the FA’s director of women’s professional game, on Friday attempted to explain why. “The answer is a simple one,” she said. “Following consultation with the clubs, and separately with all of the club captains, the clear consensus was that there were too many operational, logistical and financial obstacles in place to complete the season – and that the overwhelming view was to prepare for and concentrate on coming back even stronger for the 2020-21 season.”

But even now that the 2019-20 season is over, it is unclear how and when that 2020-21 season will begin. A working start date in late September – seven months on from the last time professional women’s football was played in this country – still needs to be finalised and is subject to change. This season’s Women’s FA Cup, meanwhile, has not officially ended. Whether it will be played to completion remains to be seen. As these high-level discussions continue, the contracts of many full-time and part-time WSL and Championship players move closer and closer towards expiring.

Liverpool have been relegated (Getty)

The fall-out led the shadow sports minister to accuse football’s authorities and government of “binning” the women’s game earlier this week. Alison McGovern, who also wrote to the FA’s chief executive Mark Bullingham, could not help but draw reference to the FA’s 50-year-long outlawing of women’s football which lasted until 1971. “Will women continue to pay the price for a ban 99 years ago, that still overshadows women in football today,” she said. “Or is there a road to equality? Women players and supporters deserve answers.”

The clear pathway that McGovern wants towards a safe return may be needed urgently. In April, the international players’ union FifPro warned that the pandemic posed an “existential threat” to women’s football. “Unless there is a clear commitment to stabilise competitions and provide financial assistance to keep leagues, clubs and players in business, the economic standstill will ultimately result in insolvencies of otherwise profitable and stable clubs,” the union’s report said.

It would not be an exaggeration to describe such a setback as disastrous. The growth in the profile and status of the women’s game is perhaps the one unequivocally positive development of world football’s 21st century so far, but continuing to narrow the sport’s gender gap relies upon financial security and consistent, sustained visibility more than anything else.

The space in this summer’s sporting calendar could have provided English football with the perfect opportunity to maintain the momentum generated last year and keep its new and growing audience engaged. Instead, while their male counterparts in the Premier League command the nation’s attention, women’s players will have to watch on from home with the rest of us.