Seventeen clubs across the EFL and National League would still be loss-making even if their players played for free. Meanwhile, 94% of clubs across England’s top five leagues reported losses last year, and two-thirds said their owners were the only thing keeping them afloat.
These are just some of the statistics highlighted in the Independent Football Regulator’s (IFR) State of the Game report, which paints a worrying picture of the financial state of English football. Many clubs are effectively living month to month, operating in a constant state of financial uncertainty.
Yet, listening to some of the commentary surrounding football, you could be forgiven for thinking these problems belong exclusively to the women’s game.
In a world where self-proclaimed sports analysts on podcasts dissect Women’s Super League (WSL) attendances and cherry-pick statistics to portray the competition as a deteriorating business haemorrhaging money, the reality of women’s football in England is considerably more complicated.
For years, the rhetoric pushed by its doubters has been that women’s football is “unprofitable” and too risky for investors. The irony is that financial instability has now become a major talking point in the men’s game, despite many of the same criticisms being directed at women’s football for years.
What Does The IFR Report Tell Us About The Women’s Game?
Commissioned by the UK Government, the IFR has examined the finances of clubs across the English football pyramid, including the 92 EFL clubs and 24 National League clubs. Its State of the Game report offers an interesting insight into the challenges facing football, while also highlighting the progress being made in the women’s game.
Total revenues across WSL clubs have almost tripled in just four seasons, rising from £32 million in 2021/22 to £90 million in 2025/26. Meanwhile, revenues from UEFA club competitions have increased fiftyfold since 2017/18.
These figures suggest that the women’s game is continuing to grow commercially, both domestically and in Europe. Yet, if you listened to some of the more pessimistic voices online, you might be led to believe that the WSL would collapse into freefall if Arsenal disappeared from the competition tomorrow.
That is not to say the women’s game is without its shortcomings. According to the report, attendances plateaued in 2025/26, while post-tax losses increased by £10 million over four seasons. Across the same period, net debt among clubs rose to £84 million.
The IFR also stresses that continued growth must translate into a financially sustainable model. That is an entirely reasonable concern. Football has already seen what can happen when financial ambition outpaces responsible management, with leagues such as the Chinese Super League experiencing serious difficulties after periods of heavy investment.
The lesson is clear: growth alone is not enough. Without sensible financial planning, even an exciting period of expansion can become a problem; however, it is also important to recognise the unique position of women’s football.
After the FA’s ban on women’s football at affiliated grounds was lifted in 1971, the women’s game has had to develop without the same historical infrastructure, investment or commercial foundations enjoyed by the men’s game.
The WSL is still in a relatively early stage of its development, and that context matters when assessing both its achievements and its challenges.
Could The WSL Be Approaching Its Premier League Moment?
So, how much should the IFR’s findings concern the women’s game? The answer is both very little and a great deal.
The WSL has experienced years of growth and, in my opinion, is in some ways comparable to the old English First Division before the creation of the Premier League. Both competitions existed within a wider football landscape where financial resources, commercial opportunities and the future direction of the game were major considerations.
There are important differences, of course. The WSL is developing and trying to establish itself as a major force in the sporting landscape, whereas the old First Division faced its own challenges before English football underwent a significant transformation in the early 1990s.
The creation of the Premier League helped reshape English football commercially, transforming its broadcasting appeal and global reach. That raises an important question: could the WSL be on the verge of its own defining moment?
Simply adding more teams to the competition is not the answer. The WSL has a genuine opportunity to capture the public imagination in the way the Premier League did during the 1990s, but that opportunity must be approached carefully.
If the women’s game is to reach its full potential, the Women’s Professional Leagues Limited (WPLL) must look beyond the top two divisions and consider the health of the entire pyramid.
Concentrating money and resources exclusively at the top risks creating a fragile system in which the success of the wider game depends on a small number of wealthy clubs. That is not a sustainable foundation for long-term growth.
Instead, the WPLL and the Football Association (FA) should work together to establish a stronger financial relationship between the different levels of the women’s game.
Building A Stronger Pyramid Through Financial Cooperation
The WPLL and FA should explore a model in which both organisations retain their independence while supporting the wider game financially. There are existing relationships between the Premier League, EFL and National League that offer useful examples of how funding and cooperation can operate across different levels of English football.
A stronger partnership could help create additional funding streams for clubs, whether through increased prize money, targeted financial support or a dedicated fund to assist clubs experiencing serious financial difficulties.
Such investment could also help address one of the persistent challenges facing women’s football: the difficulty of making a living exclusively from playing the game.
If more money reached clubs further down the pyramid, some of it could be invested in player wages, helping more footballers pursue the game professionally without having to rely on employment outside football.
Of course, any redistribution model would need to be carefully designed, with clear criteria and appropriate financial safeguards. The objective should not simply be to move money around, but to create a healthier, more competitive and more sustainable pyramid.
There is also an argument for greater movement between divisions. The IFR’s discussion of the Premier League’s dynamism highlights how promotion and relegation can introduce fresh stories, new clubs and greater variety into a competition.
The same principle could benefit the WSL. If more clubs had a realistic opportunity to reach the top flight and share in its increased revenues, the potential benefits could extend well beyond the existing elite.
Take Fulham Women, for example. They are currently second in the Southern Premier Division. If they continued their upward trajectory and secured two further promotions, they could eventually reach the WSL, creating a compelling story for the club and the competition.
That kind of possibility gives clubs lower down the pyramid something meaningful to aspire to. It also creates new narratives for supporters, rather than allowing the same established names to dominate the conversation season after season.
Making The Biggest Games Feel Like Major Events
Financial reform is only one part of the equation. The WSL also needs to continue improving how it markets itself and turns its biggest fixtures into genuine sporting occasions.
Consider the Tyne-Wear Derby and the London derby. These are fixtures with enormous potential, bringing together established rivalries, passionate fanbases and the kind of atmosphere that can attract audiences beyond the existing supporters of women’s football.
Broadcasters such as Sky Sports have already made positive contributions to the promotion of the WSL, but the league itself should be investing more time, money and creativity into its marketing.
There have been some encouraging examples. Earlier this year, a series of videos featuring influencers and content creators being interrupted by a player dribbling a football demonstrated an imaginative way of bringing the sport into different online spaces.
The WPLL’s campaign for the Women’s League Cup final also offered something different, enlisting football fashion designer Hattie Crowther to produce a limited-edition run of scarves ahead of the showpiece event.
These are the sorts of initiatives that can help women’s football reach new audiences. However, they should form part of a wider, sustained strategy rather than being isolated campaigns.
Whether through billboards in central London, physical fan activations, social media advertising or collaborations with content creators, marketing matters enormously in today’s sporting landscape.
The WSL has already shown that it can be creative, but there is plenty of room to do more. Rivalries need to be promoted, major fixtures need to feel significant, and supporters need to be given more reasons to engage with the competition beyond simply following their own clubs.
The goal should be to make the biggest matches feel like occasions that the wider sporting public cannot afford to miss.
Financial Regulations Must Keep Pace With Growth
Alongside investment and marketing, the WSL must ensure that its financial rules are strong enough to protect the competition as it expands.
The men’s game provides plenty of cautionary examples. Manchester City’s financial dealings, including allegations concerning the valuation of sponsorship agreements, have highlighted the importance of clear and effective regulations. The relevant allegations and proceedings must be distinguished from established findings, but the broader lesson is that financial governance matters.
The WSL should learn from these experiences by establishing transparent rules, clear sanctions and effective enforcement. Clubs must understand exactly what is permitted, what is prohibited and what the consequences will be for breaking the rules.
I am also concerned about the level of spending taking place in the women’s game, particularly as ambitious clubs look to establish themselves at the top of the pyramid. London City Lionesses’ investment is one example of the growing financial ambition within the WSL, although spending alone is not evidence of financial misconduct.
The concern is what happens if investment becomes an arms race, with clubs spending beyond their means in an attempt to achieve immediate success.
A robust financial sustainability framework, potentially incorporating elements of a financial fair play-style system, could help address that risk. Any system would need to be proportionate to the women’s game’s current financial position, rather than simply copying the rules used in the men’s game.
The aim should be to prevent clubs from gaining an unfair advantage through unsustainable spending while ensuring that responsible investment remains possible.
Rules must also close potential loopholes, including transactions involving the sale of assets between related parties, where these are used to artificially improve a club’s financial position. Clear safeguards are essential to ensure that clubs cannot avoid sanctions through accounting arrangements that disguise their underlying finances.
The challenge is to strike the right balance: encouraging investment and ambition without allowing financial instability to undermine the competition.
The Opportunity Is There, But Getting It Right Matters
The IFR’s report is an important reminder of what the WSL is doing well, but it has also highlighted how much potential remains untapped.
In many respects, the women’s game in England is in a unique position. The men’s pyramid is experiencing contrasting fortunes: the Premier League is widely regarded as one of the strongest domestic competitions in world football, the Championship offers the enormous financial stakes of its promotion play-offs, while clubs in League One, League Two and the National League continue to face significant financial challenges.
The women’s game has an opportunity to learn from both the successes and the failures of that system.
Unlike an established competition with decades of entrenched structures, the WSL still has considerable scope to shape its future. Many things can be changed, but that flexibility also brings risks. Trying to change too much, too quickly could create problems that are difficult to reverse.
The WPLL and FA therefore have a major opportunity to use the IFR’s findings as the starting point for a long-term plan to make the WSL bigger, more competitive and more financially sustainable than it is today.
They already have a blueprint to study in the Premier League. They can learn from its commercial successes, examine the challenges that have emerged across the wider men’s pyramid and build a model that better supports the women’s game from the grassroots to the elite.
The objective should not simply be to make the WSL bigger. It should be to make it stronger, ensuring that commercial growth benefits the wider pyramid, clubs operate within sustainable financial limits, and supporters have compelling reasons to follow the competition.
The opportunity is enormous, but so is the responsibility. Building a successful league is one thing; building one that can sustain that success for generations is another, and that is where the WSL’s next chapter will truly be decided.
