Clubs in English soccer’s top-tier Women’s Super League (WSL) have voted to expand the competition to 14 teams for the 2026-27 season as organizers look to solidify the league’s future.
At a shareholder meeting yesterday (June 16), representatives from clubs in the top two tiers – the WSL and WSL 2 – voted in favor of a proposal to expand the league and raise minimum standards.
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WSL 2 will remain at 12 teams but will become a fully professional league.
Currently, the WSL format sees one team relegated from the women’s top tier to WSL 2, with one WSL 2 team then promoted up. The expansion, by contrast, will mean two teams are relegated and promoted every season, with a playoff introduced to decide the final WSL spot.
To reach 14 teams for the 2026-27 season, the top two teams from WSL 2 will be automatically promoted at the end of the 2025-26 campaign to expand the WSL to that number.
Then, the final WSL spot will be decided via a relegation play-off between the WSL’s 12th-placed team at the end of the 2025-26 season and the third-placed team in the WSL 2.
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By GlobalDataFrom the 2026-27 season, the last-placed 14th team in the WSL will be automatically relegated, while the 13th-placed team will face a play-off with the second-placed team in WSL 2 to earn a place in the top flight.
In a statement, the WSL has said: “Our priority was to find a route that would benefit the whole women's game pyramid, and we believe this next evolution of women's professional football will raise minimum standards, create distinction, and incentivize investment across the board.
“Subject to the approval from the FA board, expanding the WSL to 14 teams will stimulate movement between leagues and through the pyramid, which increases opportunities. The introduction of a promotion/relegation playoff creates distinction for the women's game and introduces a high-profile, high-stakes match.”
The measures are still subject to approval from the Football Association (FA) board, which still has a “golden share” in WSL Football, which took over the running of the top two tiers last year.
The FA is still responsible for the format of the third-tier Women’s National League (WNL), but discussions are being held over whether the National League North and National League South winners will be promoted and two WSL 2 teams will drop down from the 2026-27 season to complete the soccer pyramid.
The expansion and introduction of playoffs have come following the transfer of ownership of WSL and WSL 2 from the Football Association last year to the newly created Women’s Professional Leagues Limited (WPLL) organization, which saw the clubs become shareholders.
WPLL has since rebranded to WSL Football.
Since the takeover, there have been multiple rounds of talks between the clubs, fans, and other stakeholders about the future of the league and ways to fuel its growth.
A proposal to pause relegation and promotion while the league expanded was widely condemned, forcing a row back and the introduction of playoffs.
It has been reported that WSL plans to stay as a 14-team league for the foreseeable future due to research suggesting competitiveness would be reduced should it expand further too quickly.
The WSL is now having to contend with an increasingly congested calendar, with the women’s game featuring seven international windows and a three-week winter break, leaving too few available matchdays if the teams were to increase more.
The men’s top-tier Premier League, meanwhile, has five international windows and a one-week winter break.
Other commitments that contribute to the WSL’s tight calendar include a six-week gap between a major tournament and a new season, no more than two midweek games in a row, no midweek games after international breaks, and limited midweek games in the winter due to having to fulfil possible weekend postponements.
GlobalData Sport reported the WSL would earn an estimated $10 million in domestic media rights revenue during the 2024-25 season.
The Business of Women’s Super League 2024/25 revealed that the league would have a transformative campaign in this respect, marked by 14 broadcast deals, including a renewed partnership with pay-TV giant Sky and public-service broadcaster BBC for linear rights in the UK and YouTube's debut as the primary streaming platform.
The league’s deal with Sky and the BBC was worth around $10.09 million for the 2024-25 season. WSL games not broadcast on TV have been shown for free on the WSL YouTube channel.
Sky and the BBC have now retained their rights to show the WSL for a further five years in what WSL Football claimed is “the most significant broadcast partnership ever for women’s football in the UK & Ireland.”
