For football fans Tuesday night was another storied act in the drama of the English Football League play offs. Sunderland’s Dan Ballard headed home in the 120th minute to put the home side ahead in their play off semi final second leg against Coventry. The Sky Sports commentary team fought against the earth shattering volume of the Stadium of Light crowd: “An incredible noise that can almost be heard at Wembley, the sound of a city dreaming that it could be their time again!”
For many fans of the English game the EFL Championship play offs are revered as the ultimate entertainment that a football season can produce. Of course, while the lower leagues in the women’s game have a similar league season format, they do not have end of season play offs.
So why does the women’s game not have season ending play offs? If they did, what might they have looked like this season? And what are the barriers to introducing the play offs to the women’s game? The Halfway Line set out to answer these questions and more.
A world with the play offs
The women’s football world watched on in excitement as the Women’s Championship, now WSL 2 reached its epic conclusion on the very last day this season. The exciting clash for promotion and the league title was contested between Birmingham City, who needed a victory on the final day and London City Lionesses, who needed only a draw. The match was the first Women’s Championship match to be aired live on Sky Sports and finished 2-2 after Birmingham City came from two goals down to apply pressure on the visitors without success. London City were promoted in dramatic style.
But now imagine that was not the end of the road for Birmingham City this season, that their second placed finish had actually seen Amy Merricks’ side into a play off for a second promotion spot to the WSL. Let’s suspend our disbelief here, Birmingham enter as the top seed in a four team play off but who would have joined them?
Charlton Athletic and Durham would have had already confirmed their place in the play offs prior to the final day but the final spot would have been up for grabs. That would have meant two further, previously dead rubber matches would suddenly take on added importance. The race for that final spot would have been between last season’s promoted side from the National League North: Newcastle United and the side relegated from the Barclays Women’s Super League: Bristol City. It would have been a similar scenario to the top two with Bristol City needing to beat Durham and hope Blackburn could avoid defeat to Newcastle to make the play offs.
Of course in reality nothing was riding on those matches for either side as both team’s had known they would not be promoted nor relegated for months now. This is in contrast to the men’s championship where with the play offs and multiple relegation spots every team in the league could mathematically have been relegated or promoted still with five games remaining in a 46 match season.
The life that the play offs could breath into the middle of the Championship table is worth highlighting, taking us back to five games to go in the Women’s Championship- there was a group of sides from Bristol, Newcastle, even Sunderland down to Southampton whose season’s were effectively over, caught in purgatory between relegation and promotion.
As the table finished, the first tie would have been second placed Birmingham City facing fifth placed Newcastle United. Picture a first leg tie in front of a packed out St James’ Park with a raucous crowd baying for the home side’s victory. The return leg at St Andrews might have provided a further record breaking attendance with Birmingham City women’s largest ever crowd watching that title decider against London City Lionesses. It would have been a chance for redemption for Amy Merricks charges.
Birmingham, as the side higher placed in the table you would have assumed to be favourites but Newcastle, despite finishing seven points behind Birmingham went unbeaten against them in the league, earning four points from their rivals, making the tie all the more intriguing.
The other tie would have pit third placed Charlton against fourth placed Durham. Charlton are perhaps the Championship side that have suffered the most from the absence of a play off. In each season since 2020-21 Charlton would have made the play offs, finishing in the top five each season. The opposite is true of their would be opponents, as plucky Durham who have been competing in the league throughout that period would not have finished in the play off places in any of those seasons.
Charlton beat Durham 2-1 home and away in the league this season but Durham were the closest challengers of the top two sides for the majority of the season, and went unbeaten in the league against the champions London City Lionesses.
Of course two exciting ties would have played out and then there is the small matter of a final. There is no shortage of excitement in the potential ties. Charlton and Newcastle were impossible to separate during the season drawing 1-1 late in the season and 3-3 earlier in the season which included a Shania Hayles hat-trick, a red card and two stoppage time goals for Charlton to secure the draw on the road. Or take Durham, local rivals to Newcastle that final would pit the wealth of a Premier League backed Goliath like Newcastle United against the independently run and over performing David of Durham.
Should Birmingham have made it and faced Durham it would have meant the sides fourth encounter of the season with the lesser fancied Durham having already knocked Birmingham out of the Adobe Women’s FA Cup. The two sides had secured a home win each in the league against each other too. As for Birmingham vs Charlton it would have meant a return to the top flight for one of two sides with a rich history in the women’s game.
As this hypothetical scenario demonstrates, the play offs in the women’s game would add a delectable element of drama to the end of the season as they have for so long in the men’s game. We can only hope the untapped potential of the league will be explored in its new guise of the WSL 2.
A final at Wembley
One concern that has been raised in the face of calls for a Women’s Championship play off final that is played at Wembley is the fear of low attendances at Wembley for the match.
Last season nine end of season men’s matches were played at Wembley, with just one match played on the women’s side: The FA Cup final, which was attended by 76,082, the year before that number was 77,390 and this season already 85,350 tickets have been sold. This demonstrates the appetite for women’s club matches in England at the home of football.
Of the nine men’s matches played at Wembley at the end of the season in 2024, four were attended by less than the highest attended match in the Women’s Championship this season. The match played between Newcastle United and Sunderland saw over 38,000 come through the gates at St James Park.
One aspect of Wembley’s beauty is that teams lower down the English football pyramid are given the opportunity to play at Wembley especially from Non League with the FA Vase Final, FA Trophy final and the National League play off final. And of course from League Two, League One and the Championship.
Having said that, last year two men’s matches that were hosted at Wembley, the FA Vase Final and the FA Trophy Final both saw crowds of under 20,000 spectators, 70,000 less than full capacity. There are no plans to scrap these matches from the Wembley calendar due to attendances and nor should there be. But these competitions are for sides in the fifth tier of the men’s football pyramid and below. And yet the same courtesy is not extended to women’s sides in the second tier. Their only chance to play a club match at Wembley is to make the FA Cup final but there chances of doing so are extremely low. No Women’s Championship side has made the FA Cup final while in the second tier since before the WSL era began.
The opportunity to play at Wembley and a second promotion spot could also incentivise club owners to invest more in their club’s women’s team or even honestly just invest the bare minimum. Even if the bottom line is that club’s should not need any incentive to back their women’s side the disappointing reality is that some do need a push and need to see the ambition of the Women’s Professional Leagues Limited for the game in both top divisions. This would an exciting statement of intent for the women’s game and it’s new governing body in England and crowd sizes should not be a deterrent.
Affect on the Barclays WSL
Should the play offs be implemented it would likely require a further relegation spot in the top flight whether that be in the short term or the long term. Crystal Palace were relegated this season three matches before the end of the season and finished 10 points clear of safety, meaning the threat of relegation for those above was over with three matches to go. Should there have been a second relegation spot the race to stay up would have gone down to the final day and would have been between Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur.
There has been talk of relegation being scrapped altogether since the WPLL took over the governance of women’s football in the country. While this is an idea that seems to be off the table for now as reported by The Guardian’s Tom Garry the WPLL have given no indication that they would flip the other way either in adding a further spot. And as it currently benefits the members of the current WSL not to introduce another relegation spot it is unlikely to be voted into reality at least for now.
However with the added threat of a more realistic prospect of relegation would these teams invest more in their team in order to stay in the league? These are teams with Premier League funding and can afford to spend more on their teams, so that should not be a concern. The play off final at Wembley is said to be the the most expensive game in football, a match worth hundreds of millions of pounds regardless of the victorious team’s performance in the top flight the following season.
A place in the WSL is becoming more and more a position of prestige for a club in England and surely a day of drama at Wembley would only add to that. It would also take on a level of visibility the Women’s Championship does not currently have.
Sustainability
On the same day Georgia Stanway was selected to return to the England squad, the club she started her career at Blackburn Rovers told their players via WhatsApp message that they are 99% likely to be relegated due to not meeting the financial requirements of the league.
They are not alone, last season Reading had the same issue meaning they were relegated from the Women’s Championship to the fifth level of the pyramid: the Southern Region Women’s Football League. A similar issue is looking likely to affect Sheffield United this season, with owners unwilling or refusing to pay what’s required to maintain a place in the league.
This presents an issue that should be top of the priorities list for the WPLL, encouraging sustainability and growth in the lower leagues. If we take the hypothetical scenario that play offs would be introduced in the leagues below the Championship they would have looked like this: North play off ties would have been Wolves vs Rugby Borough and Stoke City vs Burnley while South would have seen Hashtag United vs Oxford United and Watford vs Exeter City.
While exciting in a purely footballing sense, the central concern would been the the ability to afford a place in the Championship for sides like Exeter City, Hashtag United, Oxford United and Rugby Borough with their corresponding men’s sides limited budgets. The licence to compete in the championship is thought to cost a club could between £2-3 million and while the cost is steep it essentially ensures that a club is managed on a professional level and with the goal of keeping standards high. Perhaps there is a job to be done by the WPLL to reach out to sides and help them put in place what is required and guide those side’s with ambition, to reach the level required in a sustainable way.
Yet even with a club that has the financial power to afford promotion, ambition can be found wanting. Wolverhampton Wanderers did not apply for a licence to join the Championship despite being in the hunt for a promotion place throughout the season and only missing out on the final day. Wolves were tipped before the season to challenge for the title and with the men’s side of the club having an annual turnover of over £177 million, their inability to do the bare minimum is an incitement of the hypocrisy of the club’s ‘One Pack’ mantra.
Perhaps these difficulties mean that while a play off system in the Championship could be a viable option, a play off in the FA Women’s National League North & South may be a step the leagues are not yet ready for. Given the financial difficulties for sides at the bottom of the Championship perhaps even a promotion relegation play off would likely be unworkable in the short term.
The WPLL now own the WSL & WSL 2 not the FA
The only match played at Wembley in the women’s club game each season is the FA Cup. The FA Cup is of course organised by the FA who own and operate Wembley stadium. Hence the WPLL would need to come to an agreement to play a match at Wembley that is not under the banner of the FA.
This may not present the issue that it appears to. Wembley, of course, hosts a number of events every year with other organisers, UEFA hosted the men’s Champions League final there last year while FIFA will host the Women’s World Cup final there in 2035 and that is before we even mention Taylor Swift’s Wembley dates.
The Subway Women’s League Cup is also managed by the Football Association but the final is not played at Wembley. Only once was the league cup final held at Wembley and that was way back in the 1990s. The FA insist that the match is not played at Wembley to bring the game across the country however the pitch debacle at Pride Park in the final this season demonstrated poor planning from the FA.
However before that competition moves to Wembley and further solidifies the claim of women’s football to take up space at Wembley, we are unlikely to see a play off final hosted there.
This is not an exhaustive list of reasoning but it is clear that a play off system in the now WSL 2 would spice up life in the second division and by extension, the top flight. Women’s football clubs and players deserve the chance to write club history and give their city a chance to dream that it could be their time again.
