This weekend sees the start of the 2024-25 English Women's Championship, and with a new contender ready to shake things up. After two consecutive promotions, Newcastle United are promoted to the second tier for the first time and they're not just here to take part – they're here to conquer.
Newcastle's rise has been meteoric, driven by strategic investment and bold decisions. Recognising that moving up the football hierarchy requires significant resources, under the guidance of Amanda Staveley and Dan Ashworth [Staveley severed her ties in the summer; while Ashworth moved on to become Manchester United’s sporting director] The club dared to turn professional in 2023 while still in the third tier of the FA Women's National League (FAWNL), where most teams are amateur. This early gamble set them apart and helped accelerate their rise, taking them to the brink of the Women's Super League (WSL).
“We are ambitious and unapologetic about what we want to achieve and it's no secret that we want to reach the top of women's football,” head coach Becky Langley told ESPN. “We are also aware that there are many steps that need to be accomplished in the process, but at the same time we are working very hard behind the scenes to continue to invest time and money into the team to continue to improve the quality we have on and off the pitch.”
But the road ahead is fraught with challenges. The leap from the FAWNL to the Championship is huge, but it pales in comparison to the gulf between the Championship and the WSL. The Championship is a battleground between semi-professional and professional teams, where former giants such as Sunderland and Birmingham City have found themselves stuck in the doldrums, unable to regain promotion.
Following Crystal Palace’s promotion, the 2024-25 season will feature all 12 WSL clubs with men’s teams affiliated in the Premier League, making the WSL a more level playing field than in previous seasons. But that doesn’t make Newcastle’s path any easier. The north-east club are well aware of the odds but are determined to defy them, starting with a high-stakes clash against London City Lionesses on September 8.
Cash injections and signing of declarations
Newcastle’s £300m takeover by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and the Reuben brothers in 2021 saw the club quickly become the richest in world football. While the men’s team quickly spent £400m over four transfer windows, the women’s team only began making big changes once they secured their place in the Championship at the end of 2023-24.
Indeed, with promotion assured long before the end of the season, the club made some key signings that signalled their intentions, including: former Sunderland goalkeeper and last season's Golden Glove winner Claudia Moan; experienced midfielder Rachel Furness; and perhaps most impressively, former Manchester City and England defender Demi Stokes.
The signing of Stokes, 32, who has 69 England caps and won Euro 2022, sent shockwaves through Newcastle fans, and not just because he began his career at Sunderland. The signing sent a clear message: Newcastle are here to compete at the highest level.
“I made the decision because when I met with them I was so excited,” Stokes said of her signing. “The journey they've come on, credit goes to the girls for getting the club to the position it's in. I just wanted to be a part of it.”
Langley also praised the club's forward thinking and support in getting the team to where it is, noting that Staveley in particular had been a “huge supporter” of the women's team.
“They are very ambitious and want the women’s team to progress quickly,” she said. “At the same time, they understand the context. Two years ago we were playing level four football, so we have made a huge effort over the last two seasons to ensure that the players are now full-time. Everything in terms of all-round support has had to change and improve very quickly to ensure that we are providing the best environment for the players to progress as quickly as possible.”
Newcastle are not alone in their pursuit of promotion to the WSL, with London City Lionesses following a similar trajectory. Their fortunes changed when Michele Kang, owner of Washington Spirit and Lyon, acquired the club. This investment brought with it a wave of changes, including a move from Princes Park in Dartford to Bromley FC’s Hayes Lane. [increasing capacity by 25%]the acquisition of their training ground and the high-profile signing of former Paris Saint-Germain coach Jocelyn Prêcheur. But the most eye-catching addition was that of Sweden captain and 2022 Golden Foot winner Kosovare Asllani from AC Milan.
Like Stokes, Asllani has an impressive CV (having played for PSG, Manchester City and Real Madrid), but his decision was driven by a desire to help Kang's vision of elevating the Lionesses to the top flight.
The 35-year-old midfielder was clear about her motivation: She had been waiting for someone to invest in the women’s game the way Kang did. Kang, who recently donated $4 million to USA Rugby as part of a $50 million investment in the “first-ever global multi-team organization dedicated to women’s soccer,” told The Athletic: “We reached out to a lot of top-level coaches, a lot of top-level players. A lot of them said, ‘Call me when you get promoted. ’ A lot of people were very nervous about joining a Championship team, but Asllani took that risk.”
While Kang says a direct financial return on their investment is not expected for at least five years, their experience will be key to driving London City Lionesses’ development. But it is clear to them and Newcastle that significant investment is not only essential to compete at a high level, but also to ensure sustainability in a landscape where relegation could strip a club of its professional status.
These clubs are not just looking to survive – they are positioning themselves to thrive in the increasingly competitive world of women's football.
The risk of unsustainability
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Explaining Chelsea and Arsenal's transfer priorities in the WSL
Sophie Lawson explains the positions and players that WSL title contenders Chelsea and Arsenal will be looking to fill this summer.
The disparity between the WSL and the lower echelons of women’s football in England is glaring, with the Championship suffering from a severe lack of funding. While the WSL’s top teams enjoy lavish pre-season tours and spend big on world-record signings – such as Chelsea’s £450,000 acquisition of Mayra Ramirez – the second tier tells a very different story.
In the Championship, some clubs are forced to pay their players as little as £12,000 a year, sources told ESPN. Meanwhile, the WSL's top clubs can afford to pay more than £500,000 a year for a single player's wages – a staggering disparity that highlights the financial pressures teams outside the top flight are under.
Reading Women were a force in the WSL, finishing fifth in the 2019-20 season. But as other teams moved forward with greater investment, they fell behind. Their financial struggles culminated in relegation three seasons later at the end of the 2022-23 campaign, and almost immediately the club announced a return to a part-time professional model.
However, the landscape of the Championship is changing. With mounting pressure and increased competition, clubs are increasingly moving towards a full-time model in their quest for promotion. Reading, caught in this shifting tide, struggled to adapt. A 10th-place finish in their first season after relegation, just one place above the relegation zone, led to the club announcing they would withdraw from the league for the 2024-25 season due to financial difficulties. They have since reverted to an amateur status and are playing the 2024-25 season in the fifth tier.
In a statement, the club admitted that they need “a further cash injection from the owners to build a team capable of competing” and that “given the current economic realities of the Club, the outlay required to reach these levels is simply not possible without significant funding from the owners.”
Langley, who has been at Newcastle since it was a part-time entity, running 8-10pm training sessions on Fridays while the players juggled their full-time jobs, admitted that with the help of that initial investment, the club's growth has been monumental. “I'm really excited by their commitment so far to the women's team,” she said. “I think there's a genuine and real interest in helping.”
Yo-yo of ups and downs
The harsh reality of the WSL is that newly promoted teams face an almost inevitable battle against relegation. Bristol City’s story from last season is a familiar one: after securing promotion to the WSL in 2022-23 with a game to spare, they were relegated again just a year later after winning just one of their 22 games and conceding 70 goals.
The Championship may boast a handful of players with international experience, but they are no match for the star-studded line-ups of the WSL's top clubs. Newly promoted sides such as Bristol often find themselves at a financial disadvantage, unable to compete with the spending power of giants such as Chelsea and Arsenal.
This season, however, offers hope. After a fierce five-team race for promotion, Crystal Palace emerged victorious and ensured that all 12 WSL clubs are now supported by men’s teams competing in the Premier League. This undoubtedly helps, but the financial gap remains huge and there is no comparison between the resources available to Palace’s women and those of a team that has won five consecutive WSL titles like Chelsea.
FIFA’s mid-year transfer report revealed that the WSL spent $2.2 million on signings during the early stages of this summer’s transfer window and the majority of this spending came from top-flight clubs; primarily the top six. This certainly highlights the financial imbalance faced by newly promoted teams in their quest for WSL survival and means they need to re-evaluate their ambitions.
“I think we'd be naive to shout from the rooftops that we want to get promoted this season,” Langley said of Newcastle United's hopes for the season. “I think we have to be aware of the context. It's our first season in the Championship for a lot of players and myself. So we have to learn a lot and take it step by step.”
Even if Newcastle triumph, the battle will have barely begun. The WSL is highly competitive, with clubs flush with cash and rosters packed with international talent. Staying in the league will be a monumental challenge, but they would love the chance to try.
