While the Men’s English Premier League title race seems to be sealed already, as almost halfway into the season, Liverpool has an eight-point lead over Leicester and no less than 14 ahead of Manchester City, it is actually the league’s feminine equivalent, the Barclays FA Women's Super League, that is much tighter.
Combined with the rising popularity of women’s football in the UK, one of the title contenders demonstrate in many ways the recent trends in women’s football, not only in England, but worldwide as well.
Manchester City W.F.C., the Manchester City female club. was formed in 1988, as part of the community activity of Manchester City. However, the club had no success during most of its years. In fact, when the FA Women’s Super League, the current equivalent of the Premier League, was created in 2010, City were not part of it. Only when the league expanded from eight to 18 teams with a two league system in 2014, Manchester City were given a direct place in the first division. Thus, 2014 marks the establishment year of the “new” Manchester City, and this time it was a very different story than during the 1990s.
Traditionally, Arsenal are the most successful club in English women’s football with 15 title wins, more than any other club, and with 9 consecutive title wins between 2004 and 2012. Therefore, for many years they served as the role model for many women clubs in England. However, the new version of Manchester City has set new standards. For example, when the program was reestablished in 2014, Manchester City signed several players on professional contracts, thus allowing them to train twice a day while most clubs were still amateurs, including Arsenal players who were training only four times a week.
Moreover, the club signed some big names, including Arsenal and England captain Steph Houghton in a direct signing, and Lucy Bronze, one of the best defenders in the world and player of the year in 2014, who joined the club in 2015. Other big names were signed and together they led the club to its first championship in 2016.
Key figures in the Manchester City organization, such as Chairman Khaldoon al Mubarak, showed their appreciation to the female football team. Patrick Vieira, the former head coach of the men’s club development squad, stated that the improvement in French national team and the long success of Arsenal Women Football Club made him a fan of women’s football and the progress it made: “I am excited, when we look at the last few years, the way they have improved technically. It is unbelievable”.
However, different voices stated that City’s money is ruining women’s football and that in fact they “bought” their success. Reminds you of something? Indeed, Manchester City W.F.C spent considerable amounts of money in this project. This money was invested in the signing of big-name players to professional contracts and providing them with the best facilities available. But is it such a bad thing in this case? For many years, one of the barriers to the development of women’s football was purely economical. As Tony Duggan, who played for the club between 2013 and 2017 and currently plays for Atletico Madrid stated:
"A lot of the fans and a lot of the players out there are saying women's football needs more money, women's football needs more whatever. Man City have come in and put that in place. This is life-changing. We don't have to work now so it has a massive impact on our life. We're professionals compared to what we used to be – [when we were] training twice a week and working a full-time job – that's not good for anyone, so we've grabbed the opportunity."
Nowadays, women’s football in England is in its peak with the recent success of the English national team, the transformation of the league to a fully professional status since the 2018-19 season and the new deal signed by the league and Barclays bank, offering a record sponsorship for British women sports. Manchester City has a large part in it, and one very good testimony for its contribution in popularity and distribution of women’s football can be seen by the fact that the recent derby against United in September set a crowd record in England with 31,213 people witnessing City’s victory in the derby.
On Sunday, they will confront Chelsea, another rising club in women football for an elite duel between two clubs that are in the midst of a three team battle alongside Arsenal for this year’s championship. No matter how this game will end, it is another step towards the full professionalization of women’s football and the increasing involvement of big money, a path City is leading just like in the male version. Is it a good or a bad thing? Maybe in this case the answer is even fuzzier.