The Girls’s Tremendous League is about to develop to 14 groups from the 2026/27 season.
The present league format sees one staff relegated from the ladies’s soccer’s high tier, however it’s going to now change to 2 groups relegated and promoted each season.
To be able to attain 14 groups for the 2026/27 marketing campaign, the highest two groups within the second tier – the Girls’s Tremendous League 2 – might be routinely promoted to the WSL.
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Flo Lloyd-Hughes from The Cutback reacts to the information that the WSL is about to develop to 14 groups from the 2026/27 season
The ultimate 14th spot might be determined by a relegation play-off on the finish of the season between the Twelfth-placed staff within the WSL and the third-placed staff within the Girls’s Tremendous League 2.
From the 2026/27 season, the last-placed 14th staff within the league might be routinely relegated, with the Thirteenth-placed staff going through a play-off with the WSL 2 runners-up.
Shareholders of the WSL voted on the measure on Monday, however it’s nonetheless topic to approval from the Soccer Affiliation (FA) board.
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Check out among the greatest objectives from the Girls’s Tremendous League 2024/25 season with strikes from Vivianne Miedema, Sandy Baltimore, Janice Cayman and extra!
An announcement from the WSL learn: “Our precedence was to discover a route that will profit the entire ladies’s recreation pyramid, and we imagine this subsequent evolution of ladies’s skilled soccer will increase minimal requirements, create distinction and incentivise funding throughout the board.
“Subject to the approval from The FA Board, expanding the BWSL to 14 teams will stimulate movement between leagues and through the pyramid which increases opportunities. The introduction of a promotion/relegation playoff creates distinction for the women’s game and introduces a high-profile, high stakes match.”
Evaluation: New guidelines controversial – however add to drama
Sky Sports activities Information’ Anton Toloui:
The league’s bosses have thought lengthy and arduous about how greatest to develop the highest division however immediately’s announcement will not be with out its critics.
The specter of relegation stays for the worst performing staff in WSL this season nevertheless it’s a practical risk that facet might tank all yr and nonetheless retain their high flight standing.
That being mentioned, having a minimum of two groups come up from WSL2 is a large win for golf equipment which have been creating and investing of their ladies’s programmes.
Groups akin to Birmingham Metropolis, Bristol Metropolis, Charlton, Newcastle and others might be delighted to now have three alternatives to win promotion to the promised land as a substitute of squandering extra money and time and not using a first rate likelihood of going up.
And who does not love a play-off? Having one with such jeopardy appears like an enormous enhance, when it comes to leisure, for the ladies’s recreation.
Sky to indicate practically 90 per cent of WSL video games from subsequent season
In October, it was introduced that Sky Sports activities has signed a brand new five-year deal to broadcast the WSL – securing the rights to indicate practically 90 per cent of the league’s video games.
From subsequent season, Sky will broadcast 118 matches from the WSL, up greater than thrice the variety of video games presently, with 78 fixtures proven completely.
With over 75 per cent of first picks plus all matches from the closing weekend unique to Sky, ladies’s soccer followers are assured extra of the perfect matches week in, week out from England’s high flight.
The brand new partnership additionally offers Sky the choice to indicate matches from the Girls’s Championship and Girls’s League Cup, together with the ultimate. This brings each competitions onto Sky platforms for the primary time.
In 2023, Sky Sports activities broadcast over 70 per cent of all dwell televised ladies’s sport. Girls’s soccer might be loved alongside England Cricket, The Hundred, US Open tennis, WTA Tour, ladies’s golf majors, England Netball, F1 Academy, WPL Cricket, ladies’s boxing, Girls’s Tremendous League (rugby league) and extra.
Soccer followers can take pleasure in this big improve of fixtures from the ladies’s recreation from subsequent season similtaneously Sky’s file cope with the Premier League kicks in, together with a minimum of 215 matches – a rise of 70 per cent on completely dwell video games.
Sky Sports activities to indicate 215 dwell PL video games from subsequent season
From subsequent season, Sky Sports activities’ Premier League protection will improve from 128 matches to a minimum of 215 video games completely dwell.
And 80 per cent of all televised Premier League video games subsequent season are on Sky Sports activities.
