Waiting for men\u2019s broadcast picks, dodging local fun runs and even having to avoid clashing with nearby comedy gigs: welcome to the quagmire of trying to arrange the Women\u2019s Super League and WSL 2 schedule.<\/p>\n
The fixture list is often a bone of contention for supporters, and organisers face a painstaking task in trying to organise games in venues where other teams get first dibs.<\/p>\n
\u201cStadium availability is led by the men\u2019s game and then broadcast is led by the men\u2019s game, so it can be really hard,\u201d Zarah Al-Kudcy, chief revenue officer at WSL Football, says. \u201cSome of the reasons we are given as to why fixtures have to change, you just have to laugh or you\u2019d cry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The issue has come into sharp focus with Arsenal two games into a run of seven matches in 20 days, and with Saturday\u2019s Women\u2019s Champions League semi-final \u2013 which prompted the rearrangements of multiple league fixtures \u2013 clashing with a tantalising final day of the WSL 2 season, but work began on this season\u2019s schedule 18 months ago.<\/p>\n
Even releasing the fixture list to supporters each summer presents a series of hurdles. Dates are locked into the international calendar first by Fifa \u2013 which has confirmed its match windows up to 2030 \u2013 then by Uefa, which inserts European club competitions dates. Then WSL Football and the Football Association undergo \u201cvery friendly negotiation\u201d over which of the vacant slots will be reserved for cup ties.<\/p>\n
Conversations typically begin the December before the season but, for 2027-28, they will start shortly because of the \u201cadded complexity\u201d of January 2028\u2019s Club World Cup, says the WSL\u2019s chief operating officer, Holly Murdoch, who says the new, longer, three-game Fifa windows that each use two full weekends of the calendar are problematic. The WSL has 20 guaranteed available weekends a year compared with 33 in the Premier League.<\/p>\n
Once round dates are agreed, women\u2019s football has to wait, wait and wait some more. The Premier League decides its fixture list, the EFL follows and the WSL even waits for the men\u2019s National League, because two WSL clubs, West Ham and Crystal Palace, are tenants of National League grounds at Dagenham & Redbridge and Sutton respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcross five games, no club should have [more than] three home and two away or the other way around,\u201d Murdoch says. \u201cIn May we will write to all of our clubs ahead of 2026-27 and ask them to fill out our fixture questionnaire, including about stadium availability and constraints. There might be major events \u2013 such as the Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup this season \u2013 or road closures due to runs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last summer three clubs requested to play at home in their main stadiums on the opening weekend. Others will request a home or local away fixture straight after European matchweeks. Ideally, all clubs\u2019 men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams who share venues might alternate home match weekends but Al-Kudcy says: \u201cThat\u2019s easier in the first half of the season. Where it becomes really difficult is in the latter rounds of the men\u2019s cup competitions, as that\u2019s when we don\u2019t know which men\u2019s teams might be at home.\u201d That challenge has been exacerbated by nine English men\u2019s sides qualifying for Europe.<\/p>\n
Then a computer, run by the IT company Atos, is asked to compile the fixtures. \u201cI\u2019ve sat in meetings where we\u2019ve re-run it through the computer maybe eight or nine times,\u201d says Murdoch. Then comes phase two of the complications: kick-off times and broadcast picks.<\/p>\n
For a typical gameweek, Premier League broadcast picks come first, followed by the EFL. Then Sky Sports, which has most WSL first picks, will make its selection, before the BBC comes in. Then clubs check if it works for them. This season, midday Sunday games have become commonplace after a Football Supporters\u2019 Association questionnaire suggested fans found it hard to know when WSL games were on. The FSA did not recommend a kick-off time.<\/p>\n
Al-Kudcy says: \u201cWe gave that feedback to Sky and [that\u2019s] how we landed on that midday slot. Clubs also said they didn\u2019t want 6.30pm kick-offs on a Sunday because they said it was affecting ticket sales, so we listened to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Firm decisions have not been made about kick-off slots for next season but the league is taking onboard fan feedback and reviewing data, including the volume of food and merchandise sold pre-match depending on the kick-off time. In a sport trying to become financially sustainable, every detail counts.<\/p>\n
Sometimes wider factors affect kick-off slots. Manchester United share the Leigh Sports Village ground with rugby league\u2019s Leigh Leopards. Broadcasters\u2019 other commitments \u2013 such as the BBC\u2019s coverage of this season\u2019s Winter Olympics \u2013 can add to the complexity.<\/p>\n
Chelsea will play all of their Women\u2019s Super League home fixtures at Stamford Bridge next season. Photograph: Leila Coker\/WSL Football\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
That challenge will grow next term with the WSL top tier\u2019s expansion from 12 to 14 teams. More clubs moving to play at their men\u2019s stadium\u2013 most recently Chelsea \u2013 is welcomed by the league but leads to clashes. Even when a team has their own women\u2019s stadium, as with Manchester City, it does not mean they can play whenever they like. A John Bishop standup gig at the neighbouring Co-op Live venue was a factor for a City WSL game last year. TfL must be consulted about women\u2019s games at Stamford Bridge when Fulham\u2019s men are playing at Craven Cottage. \u201cI know the perception can be that we\u2019re not being fan-friendly but we\u2019re doing the best we can with the structure we\u2019ve got,\u201d Al-Kudcy says.<\/p>\n
When it comes to broadcast viewership, Friday night games have done well. Attendances are a different matter, but after just 27 Friday matches there is perhaps not enough data to make grand conclusions, and Friday nights have brought some success stories, such as the 32,970 who watched Chelsea face Arsenal at Stamford Bridge in the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n
These are challenges faced the world over by women\u2019s leagues, and Wednesday\u2019s announcement by the American NWSL that it will continue until 2030 with a spring-autumn calendar \u2013 instead of switching to western Europe\u2019s September-May calendar \u2013 shows big-picture questions are being posed all around the sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Waiting for men\u2019s broadcast picks, dodging local fun runs and even having to avoid clashing with nearby comedy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-643264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}