{"id":745005,"date":"2026-08-21T10:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T10:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/745005\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T10:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T10:14:09","slug":"womens-super-league-brighton-midfielder-lia-walti-missed-feeling-of-being-valued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/745005\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Super League: Brighton midfielder Lia Walti ‘missed feeling of being valued’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walti said she is “passionate” about pushing for change because she is privileged to have experienced professionalism in England.<\/p>\n

“We used to not have good conditions. It wasn’t professional. Our first salaries were not enough to live from,” said Walti.<\/p>\n

“Now, seeing the growth in England and being with players who try to push the game in their own countries, it makes you feel frustrated to still see the reality.<\/p>\n

“You forget sometimes, when you’re in your own bubble, that this is not the norm. You’re just one of the lucky ones who can experience it. <\/p>\n

“A lot of talent in women’s football gets lost because they are in bad environments where nobody sees them or they don’t have the chance to reach their potential.<\/p>\n

“I try to make an impact and I think that was really hard in Italy because I felt like when we spoke up, nothing happened, and that was frustrating.”<\/p>\n

When Walti was weighing up her future, with a year left on her Juventus contract, she knew Brighton were a club who could offer her a quality environment.<\/p>\n

In April, Brighton released their plans for Europe’s first purpose-built women’s football stadium,<\/a> which will cost \u00a375-80m.<\/p>\n

In 2021, the women’s team moved into their training facilities at the American Express Elite Football Performance Centre – the result of an \u00a38.5m investment.<\/a><\/p>\n

On the pitch, they have invested during the transfer window and reached the Women’s FA Cup final for the first time in May.<\/p>\n

Dario Vidosic’s side have ambitions of breaking into the WSL’s top three and Walti believes she has joined a club “that cares” about women’s football.<\/p>\n

“After that experience in Italy, I knew a bit more about what I probably wanted, or didn’t want,” said Walti.<\/p>\n

“I had a pretty big trust in Brighton before we had the conversations because I had been in the league and seen what the club was doing. <\/p>\n

“I’ve heard from other players about the club investing a lot and I only heard really positive things. There is no better feedback than from other players.<\/p>\n

“Once I started to have the first moments with the club, it proved to me that this is the right place – that cares about women’s football, that invests in women’s football, and who has the right people in place.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walti said she is “passionate” about pushing for change because she is privileged to have experienced professionalism in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-745005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}