Chelsea boss Hayes 'open' to idea of closed league I know the word franchise tends to make a few people's blood boil, ever since Wimbledon moved to Buckinghamshire Chelsea manager Emma Hayes a contributor to a major national review of the Women's game and says we should be open to the idea of a closed league, with no promotion and relegation and teams running as franchises. If this happened, would those who don't follow the women's game worry about it giving ideas to those running the Premier League? Could that become a 'closed league' inviting franchises? Crowds down at West Ham? Just look for someone to buy the frnachise and move them to (for instance) Dover, where they will build a new stadium for them Hayes coached in the USA, where this is normal in all pro sports. I am an ice hockey fan and struggle to understand how fans just accept it when a franchise moves. For example, I recall the Minnisota North Stars relocating to Dallas, just 835 miles away (As the crow flies). How far is this? Imagine Man U moving to Barcelona and just changing their name. Imagine this - In 1999, the Atlanta Thrashers moved 1,250 miles to Winnipeg and became the Winepeg Jets, just 3 years after a previous team called the Winnipeg Jets, relocated from there to Arizona, 1,350 miles away, becoming the Arizona Coyotes. I guess that's like Totenham Hotspur moving to Carlisle and becoming Carlisle City and then 3 years later, Grimsby relocate to North London and become Totenham Hotspur It's interesting that Hayes' boss, the new Chelsea owner Todd Boehly recently said the premier league needs to learn from American Sports, when he called for an allstar game to be introduced Would you be concerned? Do you think this might work for the WSL and never make it's way into the mens game? Do you like the idea of it coming into the men's game? Should we try to become more like American pro sports?
I think it's fair to say a massive majority of fanswould be against it, but if it got into the WSL, would you be concerned that it might then become attractive to the premier league?
Not attractive but the clubs might have ideas. The (maybe) only good thing about this is that some fans might actually have nearby clubs to go to matches with but otherwise it would destroy football heritage
Years are wrong for the Winnipeg Jets - original team relocated to Phoenix in 1996, whilst the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg in 2011.
It's already a Super League driven by the elite Premier League clubs so not far off being a closed off league anyway. Arsenal, Chelsea and City have been at the top of the women's game for quite some time. Manchester United and Spurs have started investing more in to their women's clubs, Liverpool won't be far behind doing the same. Given it's only a 12 team division it's already looking like it'll just be the same six competing every year with the other half making up the numbers / fighting off relegation. Given the pyramid is nowhere near as extensive yet I guess it wouldn't be particularly damning if it was a closed off league but I'm not sure what it'll do for the grassroots side of football. I think the women's game needs to focus on expanding and growing rather than limiting it to a select few elite clubs. Easy to compare to the US but English football has quickly closed the gap by strengthening the WSL. The sport as a whole is far more successful and appealing here so not sure the women's game needs to look across the pond for inspiration tbh. The WSL is already a good competitor to the equivalent in the USA which is why more and more stars have come over here to play.
Absolutely terrible idea, you will never see any growth in teams outside that closed shop then. They push the WSL so much on people but what they need to remember is it's still only going to be attractive to supporters of those clubs in it. I've got no interest in an Everton V Aston Villa mens game let alone womens. And as Jason says, it would be a step back in terms of encouraging girls to take part knowing that you can only get to the top if you happen to be good enough in a position that a WSL team needs a player at that specific time, as opposed to being able to get promoted with another team. The opposite needs to happen, in that promotion and relegation is expanded more. It's mental that in the North and South divisions below the championship, only one team goes up out of a total of 24.
I think that's a great idea. Just 1 up and 1 down... I might feel different if my team (Reading) weren't second from bottom
WSL needs to expand to 14 then 16 not become a franchise system, the main issue is they don't have enough games, several month long breaks per season
The FA has already ruined it by making it near enough a carbon copy of the Premier League. Before the WSL came in we had Arsenal, Leeds, Bristol, Charlton, Doncaster, Everton, Liverpool and Birmingham, that was a nice mix. Now the league only cares about your bank balance. Man City and Man Utd, and probably Chelsea too, are small clubs in the womens game if it wasn't for the FA wanking over the mens team.
