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Commercial Infrastructure and Growth in Women’s Football: The Real Fight For Equality?

05.03.26

“The game of football is quite unsuitable for females and should not be encouraged” – The FA’s Consultative Committee, 5 December 1921

Given that a record-breaking audience of 12.2 million people[1] watched the UEFA Women’s EURO 2025 Final on the BBC, you would be forgiven for forgetting what a long way the game has come in the past fifty years.

Women’s football matches were barred from FA-affiliated grounds in 1921, a ban that lasted until 1971. The knock-on effect has been long-lasting. In 2025, the “Play Gap” Report estimated that the FA’s 50-year ban has cost the women’s game an estimated £37.5m in lost annual revenue and potential investment. It also estimated that, were it not for the ban, the women’s game would be approximately 30-40% bigger by now.[2]

Indeed, it was not until 1991 that the FIFA Women’s World Cup was held for the first time. In 2011, the FA Women’s Super League (“WSL”) was born and as recently as 2024, the WSL and Women’s Championship became independent of the FA, with the Women’s Professional Leagues Limited aiming to oversee a new era of growth in the sport.

Today, women’s football is experiencing an unprecedented surge in popularity and growth, from participation and matchday attendances to broadcast coverage. In England, the recent success of the Lionesses has undoubtedly been a driving force. In the 2024/25 season, the cumulative revenue of the 15 top revenue-generating women’s clubs was €158m, an increase of 35% on the previous season, which itself replicated the same growth rate.[3]

However, the women’s game remains on unequal ground when it comes to the commercial infrastructure needed to support long-term financial sustainability and growth. By comparison, men’s football is a different product which has had far longer to develop. It is often said in this respect, that the women’s game is in its “start-up phase”.

So, what can be done to support the growth of women’s football in 2026 and beyond?

Structural Changes

The majority of women’s teams are affiliated with a men’s football club, often as subsidiaries of an overarching parent company. This has some significant drawbacks:

First, it means complying with the stringent financial regulations which govern the men’s club. Although, it is of note that the replacement of the Premier League Profit and Sustainability (“PSR”) Rules by the Squad Cost Ratio (“SCR”) and Sustainability and Systemic Resilience (“SSR”) Rules from the 2026/27 season will now mean that although income relating to women’s teams will count towards the SCR, costs will not, which is hoped to give clubs more freedom to invest in their women’s teams.[4]
Second, funding can rise or fall depending on the success or failure of the men’s team. In an independent report for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in 2023, Karen Carney noted concerns about what might happen to a women’s team if the affiliated men’s team suffered a financial shock such as relegation, given that there are no mechanisms in place to protect the women’s team from such an event.[5]
Third, prospective investors are effectively required to invest through the men’s club, since the two are typically part of the same legal entity, rather than being able to focus on the women’s team alone. This is one of the reasons Chelsea recently cited as an advantage of separating its women’s team from the men (see further below).
Fourth, women’s teams are at risk of being treated as a secondary priority under a common ownership structure, receiving less strategic focus and dedicated financial resources in critical areas such as player acquisitions, and losing out on opportunities to build a distinct identity and develop their own commercial infrastructure.

The consequence for many women’s teams is a lack of commercial independence which is not necessarily conducive to long-term growth.

However, some have broken free of the traditional model. In 2019, London City Lionesses became the first fully independent club in the WSL, after separating themselves from Millwall. They have since been taken over by businesswoman Michele Kang in 2023 and have attracted new sponsors, including Nike and Mastercard. In fact, investment in the London City Lionesses now far exceeds that of established WSL clubs including West Ham and Leicester.[6] Their self-governing, standalone model has paved the way for others to take a similar approach.

Women’s football does not need to follow a one-size-fits-all approach to drive growth, as Arsenal and Chelsea have demonstrated. There is more room for creative business modelling than in the men’s game. On the one hand, Arsenal have taken a “one-club” approach across their men’s and women’s teams, benefitting from economies of scale and uniform brand image. Arsenal Women regularly play home games at the Emirates and use the same marketing as the men’s team. This strategy has grown their matchday income significantly.

On the other hand, Chelsea have recently undergone a significant restructure, separating its women’s team from the men. The women’s team now sits alongside the men’s team, rather than beneath it. As a result, Chelsea Women now benefits from its own dedicated management, resources and commercial leadership, opening up new opportunities for investment.[7] This is a route that may increasingly become attractive to clubs.

Diversifying Revenue Streams

The men’s and women’s games differ significantly in the make-up of their respective revenue streams.

Women’s football is its own, unique product with a different audience. More women are engaging with it than the men’s game, and its fanbase is younger and newer, with 53% having become fans in the past three years.[8] This opens up new opportunities to diversify revenue streams and grow the women’s game.

For women’s teams, commercial revenue is generally the biggest source of income.[9] Growth is likely to accelerate further, with UEFA anticipating that across Europe, the commercial value of women’s football could increase up to 6x from €116m in 2021 until 2033.[10]

In that context, there remains huge, untapped potential for external investment to boost fortunes. According to FIFA, only a small percentage of women’s leagues and clubs currently benefit from external investment.[11] By comparison, in the men’s game, losses are regularly sustained at the highest level, because clubs are considered an established asset into which external investors are willing to inject cash if needed.[12]

Sponsorship of the women’s game is also increasingly an attractive proposition. The Women’s Sport Trust has revealed in new research in 2025, that sponsorship of women’s sport makes consumers more likely to buy from those brands and think more favourably of them.[13] Indeed, Barclays report that their sponsorship of the WSL has made customers feels closer and warmer to them as a brand.[14]

Broadcast makes up the least significant revenue stream in women’s football, although the men’s game relies heavily on it. This is likely to be an area of growth in future. However, women’s teams should not aim to replicate the same model as the men, since their fans are increasingly engaging through non-traditional media. In 2024/25, 12 WSL clubs generated almost 30% more engagements on Instagram compared to 24 men’s clubs in the EFL Championship. Similarly, FIFA reported 3.2bn views of their social and digital content for the 2023 Women’s World Cup.[15]

One particular area for development is matchday attendance. The men’s game benefits from consistently high levels of matchday attendance, a reliable source of revenue for clubs. Whilst women’s teams in England have seen a huge rise in matchday attendances in recent years, likely due to the success of the Lionesses, this can be variable and clubs are being challenged to incentivise repeat attendance and build loyalty. For example, Arsenal Women has brought in tiered pricing, rewarding fans for consistent attendance.

Academies offer a talent pathway for young players to be funnelled into the professional game, and in men’s football, they are a source of valuable transfer/compensation fee income for clubs. However, the academy system is not yet fully developed in the women’s game. It was only as of the 2023/24 season that the WSL and Women’s Championship introduced a “recognition fee” structure to compensate clubs for developing young players within their Professional Game Academies (“PGAs”). These fees remain extremely low: between £500 and £5,000 from the WSL2 up to the WSL. Karen Carney has observed that this “must go much further to encourage and protect investment in the talent pipeline”.[16] However, one change we can expect in the 2026/27 season is the introduction of formal academy contracts for U16 players.[17] This is intended to professionalise youth development, offer greater security to players and prevent top WSL teams cherry picking from lower league teams without appropriately compensating them.

In summary, women’s football has had a meteoric rise over the past 50 years. It is perhaps set now to transition out of the “start up phase”, and towards an exciting new era of increasing growth, financial stability and independence. It remains to be seen how the sport will seize these opportunities. One thing is for sure, it’s all to play for.

Mia Chaudhuri-Julyan

International Women’s Day, 2026.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/bbc-sport-record-breaking-womens-euro-2025-audience#:~:text=A%20peak%20live%20audience%20of,2025%20across%20all%20TV%20broadcasters

[2] https://www.threemediacentre.co.uk/content/half-of-brits-not-aware-of-the-50-year-ban-on-womens-football/

[3] https://www.deloitte.com/uk/en/services/consulting-financial/analysis/deloitte-football-money-league-women.html

[4] https://www.premierleague.com/en/news/4467022/new-premier-league-financial-system-explained

[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/raising-the-bar-reframing-the-opportunity-in-womens-football/raising-the-bar-reframing-the-opportunity-in-womens-football

[6] https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/oct/17/wsl-considers-borrowing-tens-of-millions-to-accelerate-growth-plans

[7] https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/article/chelsea-women-announces-strategic-growth-plan

[8] https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PDF/uk-the-compound-effect-in-womens-football.pdf

[9] n3

[10] n8