When London City Lionesses beat Manchester United on the opening night of the season, it felt like a sign of changing times in the English women’s game. An hour before kick-off in Bromley, the team news had already made that clear: their starting XI contained no English players, the first time a Women’s Super League side had fielded such a line-up on the opening day of a season. Two days later, Tottenham followed with only one British starter — Scotland striker Kirsty Hanson — in their win over West Ham.
Both selections point to the growing ability of WSL clubs to attract leading talent from around the world, a trend that has helped build a league many now regard as the best in the game. But with the Women’s Champions League returning this week, the question is whether what benefits the WSL also benefits homegrown players — and, by extension, the home nations. The Guardian’s Tom Garry has described the situation as “alarming” for the hopes of those national teams.
The changing make-up of the league is stark. Ten years ago, when current champions Manchester City last won the WSL title, they did so with an all-British starting line-up. Since then the WSL has gone fully professional in 2018, the Lionesses’ success in the 2020s has rapidly grown the audience, and revenues have risen accordingly. Clubs have widened their scouting networks and can now attract players of many nationalities, with transfer fees exploding since the turn of the decade. Recent windows have seen heavy recruitment from Germany and Sweden, while two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas swapped Barcelona for big-spending London City this summer. A growing presence of players from Japan and Australia underlines the league’s appeal.
The data reflects the shift. The share of homegrown players — English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish — starting 11 or more matches, half a WSL season, has fallen steadily over the past three seasons to under a third. The opening weeks of this season have brought a modest bump on last term, though that can be partly attributed to the WSL’s expansion from 12 teams to 14 and the greater proportion of homegrown talent in the promoted trio of Birmingham City, Crystal Palace and Charlton Athletic. The trend is not mirrored across Europe’s other leading leagues: in France, 61% of players to start half or more of their matches were French; in Germany 63%; and in Spain 69%.
Managers acknowledge the tension. Birmingham City’s Amy Merricks says the league’s growth has “attracted world class athletes from all over the world”, but adds: “Unfortunately that blocks some of the pathways for the youngsters coming through.” She argues the talent is needed because the league is growing, yet the issue must still be addressed. Manchester City boss Andree Jeglertz is more blunt about his priorities, saying his duty is to pick the team that gives the best chance of winning: “If that contains eight young and promising English players or zero, I don’t care. I just want to win the game.”
The knock-on effect on the national side is the crux of the debate. England are two-time European champions, yet seven of the players who started against Spain in June also started the Euro 2022 final against Germany, and two more who began this year’s meeting were on the bench four years earlier. Sarina Wiegman’s side were outclassed in Majorca, losing 4-0 to miss out on automatic qualification for the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil. They must now come through two rounds of play-offs, beginning against Greece in Crete on Friday, 5 October.
The pipeline below the senior team is under scrutiny too. The Women’s Under-20s World Cup is ongoing in Poland, where Lydia Bedford’s side were knocked out 3-0 by Nigeria in the last 16 — a tie they contested without several players, including US-based Erica Meg Parkinson and Laila Harbert, who were not released by their clubs. England, like the other home nations, did not even qualify for the 2022 and 2024 tournaments, a far cry from the class of 2018, when Alessia Russo, Lauren Hemp and Georgia Stanway helped the Lionesses to third place. Wiegman has handed debuts to 21 players since her arrival in September 2021, but only Lauren James, Hannah Hampton and Lucia Kendall have become established starters.
To protect the pathway, Football Association rules require WSL clubs to include eight homegrown players in their squad lists, with a higher quota for WSL 2 clubs that works on a sliding scale depending on squad size. Former England striker Ellen White told the Women’s Football Weekly podcast that this is not enough, calling for the quota to be updated to better “help and complement our international structure, our homegrown talent”. Garry would go further still, telling BBC Women’s Football Weekly he would like to see a mandated minimum number of homegrown players on the pitch at any one time, warning that a failure to develop players could mean England struggling to go deep in major tournaments in 15 years’ time.
Last month the FA approved a controversial plan to let some WSL academy sides play in the National League from 2027-28, saying it would “strengthen the women’s football pyramid, raise standards across the league, and improve the development pathway for young players”. The governing body believes the reform will address the relative lack of competitive minutes young English players receive. Chelsea have already confirmed they intend to enter an academy side in the third tier, and Manchester City women’s managing director Charlotte O’Neill has said she would want to enter a team as well. The debate over how much homegrown talent the WSL should be obliged to field now stretches from the boardroom to the pitch.
Arsenal begin their Women’s Champions League campaign against HB Koge on Tuesday, 22 September.