Annex D - recommendations in full
Updated 17 July 2023
Applies to England
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Recommendations in full
1. World-leading standards
Recommendation 1: the new entity tasked with running elite women’s football should not settle for anything less than world-leading standards for players, fans, staff, and everybody involved in the women’s game.
In doing so, it should prioritise 5 key principles:
1. The ultimate objective of women’s professional football should be a financially sustainable, competitively compelling game.
2. Financial regulation should be stringently deployed by NewCo in order to ensure the financial issues present within other elite sports are not mirrored.
3. NewCo and clubs must provide the necessary professional infrastructure for staff and players to compete.
4. In order to provide the necessary infrastructure and product, clubs, the FA and NewCo must unlock additional investment and funding streams.
5. The FA should develop governance structures that allow NewCo to embrace independent decision-making.
2. Talent pathway
Recommendation 2: the FA needs to fix the talent pathway in order to create generation after generation of world-beating Lionesses.
2.1 The FA should choose a strategic partner willing to invest in building a sustainable pipeline of domestic talent.
2.2 Clubs should be allowed access to an increased pool of international talent while the domestic pathway is fixed.
3. Professional environments
Recommendation 3: both the Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship should become fully professional environments designed to attract, develop and sustain the best playing talent in the world.
This means:
3.1 Addressing the gulf in minimum operating standards between tiers 1 and 2, specifically:
a) minimum contact time, and
b) player salaries.
3.2 Providing gold standard physical and mental health provision.
3.3 Mandating elite training facilities for elite players.
3.4 Mandating a world-leading parental package.
3.5 Funding full union representation to both tiers.
3.6 Uplifting duty of care provision for players.
3.7 Offering best-in-class career transition support for players leaving the professional game.
4. Diversity
Recommendation 4: the FA should urgently address the lack of diversity across the women’s game - in both on and off-pitch roles.
Specifically:
4.1 The FA should publish data on the success or failure of its existing equality, diversity and inclusion interventions.
4.2 The FA should establish workforce data to give an understanding of the demographics of the current football workforce in all roles and at all levels.
4.3 The FA should use workforce data to design and implement a workforce strategy for the entire women’s game.
5. Broadcasting
Recommendation 5: the FA, Premier League, EFL and broadcasters should work together to carve out a new dedicated broadcast slot for women’s football.
6. Fans
Recommendation 6: clubs must better value and support their fans - the FA should raise minimum standards to enforce this.
6.1 The FA should amend its licence requirements to require all clubs to have dedicated women’s football marketing resource.
6.2 Following the introduction of FA licensing requirements for clubs to have ticketing policies, the FA should review these annually, and clubs should actively seek feedback from their fans on how these should be adapted.
6.3 The FA should introduce a licence requirement for clubs to produce a stadium strategy focused on growing their matchday attendance, with a particular focus on increasing the number of matches played in the main stadia for affiliated teams.
6.4 The Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA) should extend its licensing scheme to all grounds used in the Women’s Super League to ensure high standards of safety, while the Women’s Championship should implement a self-regulation model with guidance, support and assurance provided by SGSA.
6.5 All clubs should ensure that the recommendations in the Football Governance White Paper with regards to fan engagement should be delivered on with meaningful representation for fans of the women’s team.
6.6 Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship clubs should each implement a supporter liaison officer.
7. School sport
Recommendation 7: government must deliver on its recent commitments around equal access to school sports for girls.
There are specific recommendations in relation to the following commitments:
- expansion of the Schools Games Mark (a kitemark scheme delivered by the Youth Sport Trust) to reward parity of provision for girls
- over £600 million across the next two years for the PE and Sport Premium – a funding commitment to improve the quality of PE and sports in primary schools to help children benefit from regular activity
- a new digital tool for PE and Sport Premium – to support schools in using the funding to the best advantage of their pupils
7.1 In order to provide transparency around the success of the expansion of its School Games kitemark, the Youth Sport Trust should publish annual figures on:
a) the number of schools signed up to the scheme
b) the number of schools reaching platinum status
c) the names of schools that have reached platinum status
7.2 Government should commit to the specific figure for funding of the PE and Sport Premium - currently “over £600 million across the next two years”.
7.3 Government should leverage its new digital tool for the Premium to provide transparency around the deployment of funds, not just from an audit perspective, but so that schools may begin to derive best practice approaches to maximising output from their investment.
8. Grassroots facilities - access
Recommendation 8: everyone involved in funding grassroots facilities must come together to increase investment in order to accommodate meaningful access for women and girls.
9. Grassroots facilities - funding
Recommendation 9: the FA, Premier League and Football Foundation should work together to make sure that women and girls are benefitting from funding flowing into facilities across the pyramid.
Specifically:
9.1 The FA, Premier League and Football Foundation should create a revised strategy to offer targeted facilities funding for the entire women’s football pyramid.
9.2 Women and girls should be empowered to understand what commitments their local facilities have made around meaningful access, and to hold those facilities accountable on delivering them.
10. Administration
Recommendation 10: the FA should leverage the handover of administration of the top two tiers of women’s football to even more acutely focus on grassroots clubs and the Women’s National League.