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Women’s Super League and Championship clubs have agreed to form a club-owned organisation to run women’s professional football in England from next season onwards.
The new organisation will take control of the WSL and Championship, moving away from the FA.
Each club in the top two tiers will act as shareholders.
Former Nike director, Nikki Doucet has been appointed as the chief executive.
The FA has run the WSL for the last 13 years since it first launched in 2010.
In the Summer, Baroness Sue Campbell, the FA’s director of women’s football, said there had been “a real acceptance that the women’s game needs to be managed differently, run differently and we’ve had some really honest and exciting conversations”.
The new organisation will have a task on their hands as broadcasting contracts need to be set up for the new season with the current agreements with Sky Sports and the BBC set to expire at the end of this season.
It is also understood that VAR will be introduced to the WSL next season according to a previous report by Emma Sanders of the BBC.
Other topics of discussion, high on the agenda are the format of the League Cup, gaps in the schedule and professionalism of the officials.
Previously, Marc Skinner raised the issue of the points-based system for international players requiring a visa, which was introduced in January 2021.
He said: “There are excellent players overseas you just can’t get into the country. We should call for the structure of how we allow players in to [change] – the points tally is too high. If we want our league to be the very best then we need to look at the ceiling of the points.”
Manchester United’s Patrick Stewart is thought to have been heavily involved in the discussions surrounding this move.
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