The Football Association (“FA”) has today announced plans which will see a restructure and new licensing criteria for the highest performance tiers of the women’s football pyramid. To see these plans click here.
In a response to the plans by the FA to restructure the top tier of women’s football, Yeovil Town Ladies FC are releasing the following statement.
Following the news, to make the top tier of women’s football a full time professional club from the 2018/19 season, Yeovil Town Ladies FC would like to set out it’s position.
Winning the FA Women’s Super League Two division in the 2016 season, meant we gained our place in the top tier on football merit. Since we became a WSL2 side in 2014, our attendance has grown year on year and in three years, our club has been awarded the FA WSL Club of the Year award twice, which recognises both on pitch and off pitch success.
In the 2016 season, despite being a WSL2 team, our average attendance was higher than three WSL1 teams and in the 2017 Spring Series, the home game v Liverpool was the highest attendance in the whole of the league, with 1897 fans attending.
In just a 2 month period, we engaged with over 5000 young children through our community programme and have increased participation levels locally, through grass roots clubs.
On the pitch, our team has improved year on year, with league standings and results confirming this.
We have the structure, facilities and ambition to become a full-time professional club given time, but we currently do not have the financial support to do this. We do not have the budget to allow our players and coaches to become full-time athletes, unless further investment comes our way soon.
We have set out our plans to the FA, but it seems that there is a clear desire by them to impose off field financial criteria immediately as a condition of WSL membership.
The deadline to submit our application for a new WSL licence to The FA is 10th November 2017, with a decision to be made on 13th December 2017.
With the rapid growth of our club in such a short space a time, we urge all fans, businesses, media and the community, to continue to support us.
Our club has worked extremely hard over many years to get to the top flight and we wish that journey to continue.
Our players, staff and board are fully focussed on achieving it’s aims for the current 2017/18 season and will continue to grow and develop day by day, whilst not changing our philosophy or mantra of Achieve by Unity.
In order to discuss all aspects of our Club development, we are encouraging fans, businesses, media and the community to attend our Forum Meeting, on Monday 9th October at 7pm at Huish Park. Only those registered are permitted to attend, so to confirm your place, please click here and register.
For more info, please email info@yeoviltownladies.com
Report courtesy of Yeovil Town Ladies FC
