A new WSL season is underway – but Man United and others still give their women's team second-class treatment

Last season, the Women’s Super League broke viewership records. Nearly a million people tuned it to watch the Manchester derby on BBC One, and according to the WSL itself, matchday attendances increased by 41%. Clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea are starting to turn profits from games played at their men’s grounds and Sky Sports report that their viewership has increased fourfold as they extend their live coverage. In other words, the WSL is growing and bringing more and more money in – so why do several Premier League sides still treat their women’s teams as an afterthought?

Manchester United are perhaps the worst offenders, at least in terms of the optics. It’s only been six years since they finally put a women’s team together, having been the last Premier League side not to have a women’s section of any kind, and while that team has been successful since, winning the FA Cup last season, it’s been clear that they are given second-class treatment.

Over the course of the 2024/25 season, the women’s team will change for training in temporary portable cabins at Carrington because the men’s team will use the women’s usual facilities - this is due to a £50m modernisation project putting theirs out of action. Meanwhile, a report by The Guardian claimed that agents were reluctant to send their clients to Manchester United due to a range of issues including uncertainty over contracts and day-to-day logistical issues.

That tallies with the number of high-profile players departing the club, including England internationals like Mary Earps, Katie Zelem and Alessia Russo, the latter of which is a lifelong United fan. Meanwhile, new minority shareholder Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who is now in charge of sporting affairs at the club, has shown little interest in the women’s game.

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“We haven’t gone into that level of detail with the women’s football team,” he told reporters when asked about his plans for the women’s team, while a question about whether he would commit to support and financial investment for the WSL side was simply responded to by saying, “Well, they’ve just won the FA Cup.” Ratcliffe himself declined to attend the match at Wembley.

That lack of interest of personal investment in women’s sport also appears to extend to cycling. Ratcliffe owns the well-funded Ineos Grenadiers team, who remain among the biggest teams in the sport despite a distinct decline since he took charge, but they don’t have a women’s team at all.

Meanwhile, teams like Manchester City and Chelsea have been pouring additional resources into their women’s sides, with tangible results in terms of both on-pitch performance and financial returns. Chelsea broke the women’s world transfer record in January when they signed Mayra Ramírez from Levante for £426,000 – evidence that the money being injected into the men’s team in droves is at least filtering through to the women as well, even if the numbers pale in comparison to those spent on male players. That transfer record has since been broken by American side Bay FC when they bought Zambian forward Racheal Kundananji from Madrid CFF for £685,000.

Even in clubs which do appear to be willing to invest in their women’s team, there is occasional evidence of a lack of care and attention that would not be replicated on the men’s side. Last week, Manchester City had to play their Women’s Champions League qualifier against Paris FC without key striker Bunny Shaw after it was discovered that they hadn’t applied for a visa for the Jamaican international.

Manchester United have perhaps been the most visibly blasé in terms of their lack of care and interest, but they are far from the only side failing to invest time and money into their women’s team. Six current Premier League sides don’t have women’s teams in the top two tiers of the women’s ladder, and while some teams, such as Nottingham Forest and Ipswich Town, are growing and on a clear upward trajectory, others are far down the pyramid.

Fulham Women, for instance, are in the regional fifth tier and have been there since they were re-formed in 2014 – winners of the FA Cup in 2003, they were reverted to part-time status by then-owner Mohamed Al-Fayed the following year. The women’s team do at least now train at Motspur Park alongside the men, but have only played at Craven Cottage once, in 2022, and investment remains thin on the ground.

Brentford are perhaps the worst offenders in this regard. Their team is all the way down in the sixth tier and none of the players are paid. There has been investment in facilities and staff with the message being that they want the club to grow organically, but considering the enormous wealth available to Premier League sides it is remarkable that any of them would put so little towards a women’s section given both the social importance they have – or should have – and the rapid economic growth of the women’s game. Brentford, Fulham and Bournemouth’s women’s teams are all below local sides such as Stourbridge and Billericay Town and even Hashtag United’s women’s team, both of which are in the third tier.

A great deal of progress has been made, at least, and teams who used to pay lip service to their women’s team are now making an effort. Southampton, who only had a junior team when Manchester United finally formed their women’s side, now have a senior team in the second tier. Newcastle United Women joined them in the Women’s Championship after investment from the new owners. West Ham United have come a long way from the player walkouts in 2015 over the way their women were treated.

But given that the story of the WSL over the past decade is unquestionable one of success, continuous growth and a vastly expanded audience, it’s still staggering that so many of the top men’s teams either aren’t willing to fund a professional or in some cases even semi-professional women’s side despite their own enormous income, and amazing that clubs like Manchester United put so little time, energy and care into theirs. A vast bridge has been built towards the men’s game over the last decade, but there is still so much more work to be done, and so many more teams that could do better.