SportTrades are fans of Women's Football and through our dealings with the organisation Girls In Football, led by Polly Courtney know that there is great potential in the Women's game.The popularity of the sport is probably at an all time high with the England women's team doing well on the international and european scale. Added to that there is a Super League coming in next year which will help pump more money into the women's game and help the overall standard of football improve.
Another of the requirements is that clubs must match the £70,000 a year that the FA is prepared to give each team for the first two years of the league's operation. "We can't afford to pay our players expenses, let alone £30,000 a year," said the Sunderland chairman, Maurice Alderson. "We run our whole club on less than half of that. I love the concept of the league and I'd love be part of it, but it's going to be very difficult."
The FA wants each club to pay its top four players an annual salary of £20-30,000, a demand that the new league's project leader, Sally Horrox, admitted might deter some of the prospective founder members a couple of months ago.
"My one concern," said Horrox, "is that we might be scaring a few of the clubs off. But we are raising the bar for the women's game and we are serious about player payments and other minimum requirements."
The Premier League leaders, Sunderland, have been given a “kick in the teeth”, said their chairman, Maurice Alderson, after learning that his club’s hopes of becoming a founder member of the Football Association’s Super League have been dashed.
“With the help of Sunderland FC,” said Alderson, “we put in a very strong bid and not for one moment did I think we wouldn’t get in. We’re top of the league, we reached last season’s FA Cup final and we've got nine current internationals at various age levels. To have all that on top of a bid backed by a Premiership club and get turned down is devastating. We've been kicked in the teeth.”
Sunderland’s neighbours Newcastle United, who play in the Northern Division, have also been informed that they will not be one of the Super League’s eight clubs, the identities of which will shortly be revealed by the FA.
The north-east will therefore not be represented in the league, which is set to start next year. “At a meeting about the league two and a half years ago,” said Alderson, “the FA showed a big map of England but the northern-most city they highlighted was Leeds. When I pointed it out I was told it was ‘just an oversight’, but I'm wondering now if we were ever intended to be included.”
The FA declined to respond to Alderson’s comments. “We are still at the adjudication stage of the application process and at this time we will not comment on any individual club’s application,” a spokesman said.
Sunderland were not in action on tuesday, having been knocked out of the FA Cup by Arsenal, who progressed to the semi-finals with a 5-0 win against Doncaster. Everton also reached the last four, beating Blackburn 2-1. The other quarter-finals will be played next Sunday.
It's a big blow for Sunderland who have performed well this year. In terms of the north-west region it's a big blow as it's vital that the money from the league gets spread around the country and ideally the clubs awarded places in the competition should be spread around the country. It will also be a big blow to teams who should be getting the support from the FA and it will mean that they will find it hard to compete in the game and hold onto any good players if they're not given the opportunity to step up.
The Super League is a great concept and it will be giving the women's game a great platform to showcase itself. With several television companies rumoured to be intrested in wanting to broadcast matches, there will be television money going to those clubs in the league. What this could mean is that instead of helping the game, rather sadly some clubs could get left behind and the gaps between the top and lower teams will get even bigger. In any sport there will be casualties but it's imperative that clubs who don't get into the league are still kept financially secure so that when more places are open, clubs can fill them with confidence.
This is all, sadly, too true. The WSL is a fantastic concept but (as ever) the FA has been too heavy-handed in its approach, forcing many top-level clubs (Sunderland, Leeds Carnegie and possibly others) to have to withdraw. As stated in this article, this will widen the gap between top and bottom, narrowing the pool of talent - exactly what we DON'T need in the women's game.
ReplyDeleteSo true Polly, already its looking like the mens leagues..premiere league and then huge gaps between top and bottom. As Ive said elsewhere the FA today is sadly out of touch and needs replacing with younger people and include the grass roots supporters too or someone with a full bloodied passion for the ladies game
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