FAs Kelly Simmons eager to build on progress of WSLs first decade – The Guardian

It has been 10 years since Arsenal narrowly beat Chelsea on the bumpy Imperial Fields of Tooting & Mitcham United FC to launch the Womens Super League, which replaced the Womens Premier League as Englands top flight.

Fast forward a decade and the WSL has moved from its semi-professional eight-team beginnings to a fully professional top tier of 12 sides, a semi-pro second tier of 12 teams and a Barclays title sponsorship worth about 20m, not to mention a shift from broadcasters covering costs for the rights to televise games to a BBC and Sky Sports package worth 8m per season and record attendances. With more women and girls taking part than ever before, this is all fuelling a shift in attitudes around the very idea of their playing football.

If the lifting of the ban on womens football in 1971 brought the game out of the shadows, then the launch of the WSL in 2011 thrust a spotlight on it.

A decade ago, Kelly Simmons, then the FAs head of the national game (the grassroots) and now the head of the professional womens game, said: We hope womens football can build an audience on television and at matches and, if it can become more successful and gain in profile, it will help grow football further as a sport which girls and women want to play.

It has taken time for that broad vision for the game to be realised but now these goals are very much reality and the womens game is accelerating at breakneck speed.

Who knows where the game will be in 10 years time. Big audiences, says Simmons going into a milestone week for the WSL but also for her personally, having been such a driving force in the development of the womens game. You are already going to see big audiences, I think, next year.

But it is a sustainable league and sustainable clubs that are the goal and if anyone can be trusted to look into a crystal ball and predict the next phase of the game it is Simmons. The big change for me will be that the womens game should be able to generate enough revenue in 10 years to stand on its own two feet, she says. At the moment its growing revenue.

Youve seen a lot of brands come in at club level. Obviously, weve seen the Barclays deal, weve seen the multimillionpound TV rights announcement we made a couple of weeks ago, but its not yet sustainable. It cant survive without money made through mens football. I think over 10 years, well see that change, revenues will grow and ultimately we should be looking at a sustainable professional league in its own right and that will be a big shift.

To get to the point where womens teams are self-financing, Simmons believes it will take a couple of media rights cycles.

The growth to date has not come without casualties. Some clubs couldnt take that step. Thats been the toughest part of the 10 years without doubt, says Simmons. Knowing that the model is built with a part reliance on mens football club money and therefore weve lost clubs along the way, or theyve had to drop down to find a level of affordability, I think that that is really tough.

But I still think that without creating that licence, we wouldnt be setting those standards and we wouldnt be where we are today.

Enforcing the criteria and standards outlined in the licensing has been a demand in recent weeks, after Birmingham players sent a letter to the clubs board criticising their treatment. What I would say about Birmingham City is you cant underestimate how difficult it must be at the moment for all of the clubs who are losing so much money [to the pandemic] and who have major challenges and are adjusting and surviving, says Simmons.

It was really great to see Birmingham announcing theyll be playing at St Andrews next season because that was a big area of concern, so thats a tremendous step forward, and as I understand it from chatting to the people in the womens club, there are really good discussions going on about addressing the issues that they raised, so hopefully theyll get things sorted and be ready for the next season.

Despite the struggles of some clubs at the bottom end of the table, expansion is inevitable, says Simmons. There will be growth. What weve got to do is make sure that it grows without diluting the quality of the product, that weve got enough fully professional teams with the right support and the right amount of revenue. Obviously, the more teams we have the more it dilutes central revenues that are being distributed to support them.

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Next year that will mean the Championship will aim to accept two clubs via a fresh round of licensing to bring the league from 11 teams to 12 but the FA is taking a more cautious mediumterm approach to expansion beyond that. Meanwhile, early discussions have begun over league sponsorship, with the Barclays deal set to expire at the end of next season.

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FAs Kelly Simmons eager to build on progress of WSLs first decade - The Guardian