Wolves Women future investment

There has been rapid growth in the women’s game across the UK, and in Wolverhampton especially, on the back of both Lionesses and Wolves’ success on the pitch.  This has resulted in clubs investing further in their women’s teams.  

This International Women’s Day we saw positive announcements from Stoke City and Derby County (both in Tier 3 Northern Division with Wolves) around their women’s teams. In particular that Stoke City are going semi-pro exactly what that will look like will be between that club and its players. The indication, however, is that they will be paying the players a wage for playing for the club.

In addition, Sunderland in the Women’s Championship (Tier 2) have announced that they are adopting a “Hybrid playing model” from next season (mixture of amateur, part-time and full-time) and then the League have announced that the Play-Off game is to be scrapped (a development that is welcomed).

Fig 1: Copy of the FAWNL statement on the future of the play-off game.

What does this have to do with Wolves I hear you ask? 

Currently, Wolves Women players get “paid” expenses for attending training/matches and on the back of this and the facilities we have to offer we have been able to poach two of Stoke’s best young players (Beth Roberts & Naomi Bedeau).

When you then look at the three biggest games in the last two seasons (Southampton – Play-Off Game; West Ham – FA Cup; Watford – League Cup Semi-Final) we have come across teams that are either Semi-Pro or Pro. Focusing on the Southampton and Watford games (as both Tier 3 teams when we played them), these teams were at the time semi-pro, and at that level of fitness/difference in quality meant the difference between success and failure for Wolves.

The feeling is that teams in Tier 3 that want promotion will be investing in a semi-pro status and the Championship will become Full-Time fairly quickly, if not immediately. This is due to the competition benefit from training regularly etc. So, if Wolves want to maintain their position at the top of the Northern Division, challenging for promotion, there is a need for Wolves Women to keep pace with the investment of those teams around or exceeding that level. Therefore, it is imperative that the Wolves hierarchy increase the investment in Wolves Women and their progression to Semi-pro/professional status sooner rather than later.