Women’s Football in England…
Women’s football in England is recognised as the fastest growing team sport in terms of both player participation, and popularity among sports fans.
The FA Women’s Super League, established in 2010, is the highest tier in the English women’s game and currently features 12 professional football clubs.
When launched, it replaced the FA Women’s Premier League National Division and initially the league had no promotion/relegation system in place – a decision which was met with some controversy, as the FAWSL was disconnected from the already established and long standing English women’s football pyramid.
In the past decade, however, things have really gone from strength to strength, as more and more elite clubs take on women’s squads on a full-time basis. In addition, grassroots clubs and organisations try to ensure that as many girls teams as possible thrive in their environments, wherever this is practicable.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that you’d be hard-pressed to find a competitive girls or ladies league even as recently as 2010. However, the women’s game continues to rise, and remains the fastest growing sport in the world.
Today, women want to be seen as equals more than ever before. There are, thankfully, fewer traditional gender biases, and this shift has gained traction at long last.
As more money comes into the game as it progresses, there’s little reason for the sport not to become almost as popular as its male counterpart from a spectator point of view too.
Sky Sports have this season (2021-2022) struck a deal with the Women’s Super League to show all fixtures, which is a huge financial boost for women’s football and shows that the gap between men’s and women’s football is starting to close.
Now, many ex-professional men’s players are increasingly getting involved in the women’s game, and trying their hand at managing various women’s clubs.
There is also an increasing demand as more young girls get involved in the sport within the private boarding school football pathways. Girls football programmes are becoming increasingly popular as private schools look to get female teams off the ground, as they realise that girls and women’s football in England is growing and becoming ever more popular.
With current professional ladies’ players getting onboard and becoming ambassadors to a variety of girl’s private schools, it shows there is a big demand for young female players to enter the game via the private school pathways.
Many of the UK Private Boarding Schools that we recommend have female football programmes. We have spoken with key staff regarding the girls’ pathways, and they inform us that a huge part of the school’s vision is to have female teams within their boarding school football pathways options in the near future.
Indeed, there are already players within these Private Football School programmes that are having success signing for top clubs such as Manchester City, as well as representing the England National team at their age level. This proves that UK Private Football Boarding Schools football programmes are producing top class players at a relatively young age, another indication that the future of the women’s game is looking very secure.
If you would like more information on our girls UK Private Boarding Schools pathways please get in touch or register on our website.