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Plans to create a two-tier commercial structure at the top of the English women’s game are in significant doubt after Women’s Championship clubs revolted against the latest proposals for the new body’s voting structure.
According to Telegraph Sport sources, a majority of Championship clubs voted ‘no’, in an indicative but non-binding vote last week, because it is being proposed that Women’s Super League clubs would have slightly more voting powers in the ‘NewCo’, the temporary name for the new entity that is being set up to run the elite women’s club game in England from next summer.
The Football Association currently runs the WSL and the Championship but has made it clear it does not think it should do so beyond next summer. Therefore, throughout 2023, a working group of clubs’ chief executives from across the WSL and Championship have been meeting regularly to try and map out the structure of the new company that it is hoped will run both leagues by next season.
However, it’s understood WSL and Championship clubs still have differing views on how much voting power the 12 Championship clubs should have in future. Under the latest proposals, it’s believed Championship clubs would still vote equally on governance matters in the future. For example, if there was a vote on expanding the divisions in future, that would involve an equal vote. But they would have less of a say in signing off some commercial deals.
As first revealed by Sky News, it’s understood the latest proposals include a 75:25 percentage split in future commercial and broadcast revenues between the two leagues. Sources at several WSL clubs have Telegraph Sport they feel that split is “very generous”, as they feel it would give Championship clubs a big increase in their revenues, and that it gives the second tier a bigger percentage of the pie than is distributed down from the Premier League in the men’s game, for comparison.
Multiple Championship sources also suggested that the 75:25 split was agreeable, but it is the voting powers that the second-tier clubs are not happy to sign up to yet.
That is a blow to those wishing for the process of creating the NewCo to conclude swiftly, with the deadline of having the company up and running in time for it to oversee the 2024-25 season now getting closer and closer, and with the next phase of television rights still not having gone out to tender. The latter is expected to happen in the New Year.
This latest news could give rise to the idea of the NewCo being created without the Championship clubs, and proceeding as just a one-division entity covering only the WSL, but such a move would be controversial.
In recent weeks, many sources with knowledge of the ongoing talks have said it is clear there is no model that will please everybody but that the parties involved are trying to seek a compromise. Others insisted on Tuesday that the talks are not dead and a two-division deal could still be reached.
The FA did not wish to comment on commercially-sensitive discussions but a spokesperson for the governing body did tell Telegraph Sport: “We are in discussions to create the best model for the women’s game.”
Former Nike director Nikki Doucet remains in line to be the chief executive of the NewCo - when it is created – as first revealed by Telegraph Sport earlier in 2023, as she was the FA’s preferred candidate following an interview process, and she has been working as a consultant within these discussions ever since. But she cannot be made CEO until the company exists.