Women's Football Thread 2024/2025

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Mon Autre said:
I think average attendances don't always tell the whole story though.

I'm guessing that Bristol City going down and being replaced by Crystal Palace had a big impact here. Bristol had one of the highest average attendances in Europe at 7k and Palace's were poor (not helped by them playing in Sutton).

On top of that, we saw Arsenal's attendances plateau. The permanent move to the Emirates made the emirates games less of a novelty so instead of getting 50-60k for those it settled around 30-40k last season. Still huge numbers and I think and they will build from there.

There was always going to be a slow in interest now the post euros hype has died down but overall the general direction of movement will be upwards.

That said, I do find our own attendances kind of concerning. They are nowhere near what they should be compared to other teams.
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Good to see you back.
Agree about our attendances being a little concerning, sometimes the turn out is quite poor. I do think the club do all they can with encouraging people through the door but for some reason we just don't get the numbers others do.
 
JRockBlues said:
WSL decides to expand from 12 to 14 teams from 2026/27 season - Relegation to remain.

BBC Sport link
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Yeah, but eventually the playoff will be between a WSL team placed 13th and the second placed team in the WSL2. That's the way the playoff should be. Soton, Ipswich 'n Leicester were playing a better calibre of opponent in the PL than the winner of the play offs in the Championship!
 
Needs a stronger sponsor and some fixed games. As a seasoncard holder of our men's and women's teams, the whole "one club" aspect went right out of the window when games clashed for TV etc. Clubs need to understand their easiest buy in fans are the ones that follow their men's teams.
 
Oyster28catcher said:
Needs a stronger sponsor and some fixed games. As a seasoncard holder of our men's and women's teams, the whole "one club" aspect went right out of the window when games clashed for TV etc. Clubs need to understand their easiest buy in fans are the ones that follow their men's teams.
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Agreed, however, I'm not sure the club has much/any say in the scheduling of either PL or WSL games, so not much they can do about clashes
 
citizen_maine said:
Agreed, however, I'm not sure the club has much/any say in the scheduling of either PL or WSL games, so not much they can do about clashes
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The leagues could talk to one another. And clubs could shadow PL fixtures where possible. Computers can do it.

I could imagine the PL using AI to do the fixtures this week.
 
Oyster28catcher said:
The leagues could talk to one another. And clubs could shadow PL fixtures where possible. Computers can do it.

I could imagine the PL using AI to do the fixtures this week.
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I'm not sure it's even the leagues. It's the TV schedulers changing dates/times at relatively short notice that will often be the issue, but they can't even seem to speak to themselves as there were several games last season where our games clashed when they were both on Sky
 
SpeaksForItself said:
So that's four more games where it's all about racking up the goal difference.
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Absolutely this.

Whats the point? More knockover games ending 5/6/7 - 0 as the top 4 fatten the goal difference; as entertaining as watching a pre-season friendly. Thats assuming City actually take the Womens Team seriously rather than just rolling a team out and paying lip service to it, which if we are being honest is where our Womens Team currently are.
 
Lee the Blue said:
Absolutely this.

Whats the point? More knockover games ending 5/6/7 - 0 as the top 4 fatten the goal difference; as entertaining as watching a pre-season friendly. Thats assuming City actually take the Womens Team seriously rather than just rolling a team out and paying lip service to it, which if we are being honest is where our Womens Team currently are.
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To be fair, it might not be that much of a walkover and the wsl2 is so difficult to get out of I think it discourages investment. This hopefully might to help raise the standard in WSL2 and tge teams that get promoted along with it.

With Michelle Kang backing them I think London City have a decent chance if staying up this season top. And teams like Newcastle in WSL2 looking to make an impact.

Hopefully it make the teams who are presently stagnating in the WSL up their game a little bit. For example I think Spurs should be very worried about next season.
 
citizen_maine said:
We were discussing ways of improving the league :-)
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Yeah, fair enough. I assumed they had decent attendances but i checked and they're all shite. I think its shocking that teams like Newcastle don't have a womens team in the top flight. There must be so many young girls in the North East who deserve a team to aspire to play for.
 
It's sounds like greed on WSL part to increase revenue.

Haven't they learned from the PL?

They should revert back to a summer league and borrow that sevens format for an indoor winter tournament. Also the international team will be fully fit for euro/world cups
 
TinFoilHat said:
It's sounds like greed on WSL part to increase revenue.

Haven't they learned from the PL?

They should revert back to a summer league and borrow that sevens format for an indoor winter tournament. Also the international team will be fully fit for euro/world cups
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To be fair, the WSL's preferred way forward (which was even more of a money grab) was to close the league off entirely. No more promotion and no more relegation. A way of getting US investors with a view to flipping the clubs in a few years time.

The fans, football writers and the FSA were overwhelmingly against that and in favour of expanding the league and opening the door up to more clubs outside the top division. The WSL have had to pull a u-turn in light of all that pushback.

One promotion spot just makes the WSL 2 way too difficult to get out of and discourages clubs from investing.

I'm in no way a fan of Michelle Kang but I think her London City Lionesses team are about to show that you can invest in a WSL2 side and shake things up a bit if you're promoted. They're not going to be getting turned over week in week out that's for sure. I think Newcastle are ready to start backing their women's side a lot more too and already getting decent attendances.

This expansion has the potential to open up the top division to teams who are ready to start taking things seriously and will hopefully be a wake up call for the top flight sides who have stood still for far too long.

In terms of the 7s format, I can't see us copying that over here given the massive prize money the existing version has.
 
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