Minister welcomes Women’s Super League
The Football Association has launched the first semi-professional women’s football league.
www.gov.ukHere’s a quick update on the FA Women’s Super League (WSL) from recent coverage.
Expansion to 14 teams: The FA Board approved expanding the WSL from 12 to 14 clubs for the 2026/27 season. Automatic promotion will occur for the top team from WSL 2, while the bottom-placed WSL club will be relegated, and the 13th-placed WSL club will contest a playoff with the second-placed team from WSL 2. This marks a significant structural change aimed at growing the league and its pyramid.[1]
Context and timeline: The expansion was driven by broad club support and is part of ongoing efforts to strengthen the professional women’s game in England, with adjustments affecting promotion and relegation pathways across the pyramid in the 2025-26 and 2026-27 cycles.[1]
Related coverage: For ongoing, wide-ranging updates (results, fixtures, and analysis), BBC Sport remains a reliable resource with regular WSL news and match coverage. Other outlets like The Standard and Sky Sports have highlighted expansion-related news and related league developments in their reporting.[2][3][4]
Would you like a concise timeline of key milestones leading to the 2026/27 expansion, or a snapshot of which clubs are most likely to be promoted/relegated under the new format? I can also pull the latest headlines from BBC Sport and The Independent with links.
The Football Association has launched the first semi-professional women’s football league.
www.gov.ukThe home of Women's Super League on BBC Sport online. Includes the latest news stories, results, fixtures, video and audio.
www.bbc.comThe Barclays FA Womens Super League will be shown live on Sky Sports from September 2021; Sky Sports will show at least 35 games exclusively live in a three-year deal; the WSL has some of the best players and teams in womens football, making an exciting addition to the Sky Sports roster
www.skysports.comLatest London news, business, sport, showbiz and entertainment from the London Evening Standard.
www.standard.co.ukLatest London news, business, sport, showbiz and entertainment from the London Evening Standard.
www.standard.co.ukThe WSL clubs had agreed to a major restructure and this has now been signed off by the FA
www.the-independent.com