So, because I was talking to someone about it yesterday, and ended up with a Google hour today, I did a bit of digging and so I can give you.
The Financial FAQs of Life
To be a WSL1 team and meet all the commitments in terms of contract hours for players, additional staff, youth training, transport etc it’s estimated a club needs a minimum of around £500k/year. An FA subsidy is available to a maximum of £120k, this is designed to cover some of the costs of specialist staff (like a doctor during matches, a physio during training, a fulltime fitness coach) and similar commitments. Obviously the real costs vary from club to club – with things like the training ground, and the matchday stadium being major variables, in addition to the wages.
It's thought that City and Chelsea spend around £1m/year on their teams.
Contracts are generally short, two years is considered a significant commitment, so transfer fees are rare. If you’re looking to sign a top player or someone playing abroad you may have to factor relocation costs and a signing fee in there. Wages aren’t high enough to make things like family travel, house move and accommodation costs irrelevant.
Average attendances in WSL1 are around the 1000 mark. City are the best supported team, they get over 2000.
Some Championship clubs can meet the minimum licence conditions for that division by fundraising around £200k + FA subsidies of up to £60k. But it's tough, a lot of jobs previously done by volunteers are now required (by the FA) to be done by qualified paid staff.
What do the players earn?
In 2017/18, most WSL1 players were on semi-pro contracts, the majority earning under £20k/year, with a lot on less than £10k. The top players on fulltime pro contracts (basically the City, Chelsea, Arsenal squads and a smattering of senior players in other teams) were on around £30/40k+.
In terms of contract hours, WSL1 will go fulltime professional this year. Even so, a lot of players will still be on less than £20k. That’s less than the national average wage in the UK, so it’s mostly about love not money.
Being in the England women’s squad is a big deal, the FA have been paying about £25k/£35k year to a top group of players (about 30 of them) in addition to their club contracts. Some England players now also have sponsors, we're talking £5/10k extra there.
In other words - a top fulltime pro player, will now be on around £75k/year, about half of it coming from the club. However, most players outside the top teams will be earning £20k or less. Championship semi-pro players will get 5/10k, a couple of years ago it was closer to £2k. It's likely that United will pay fulltime contracts similar to WSL1 contracts from day one.
Historically a lot of top players, including our manager, supplemented their income by doing coaching jobs. A lot of the others had normal jobs outside football or were students. One of the many unknowns about the new structure is whether the advantages of going fulltime will outweigh the possible loss of experienced semi-pro players who might now be asked to take a pay cut or drop out of college to continue.
For context.
The wages are comparable to those paid to semi-pro players in the upper tiers of men's non-league football. Even with the new rules, an average WSL1 club will have a smaller budget than any team in the highest non-league division. Non-league teams expected to be in the hunt for promotion to the League (like Salford City who are in the top division of non-league, the fifth tier of English football) have much bigger wages budgets than teams like City /Chelsea.
Incidentally, it struck me when I was writing this that Phil Neville’s experience with Salford could actually be helping him understand the financial pressure on his national squad and the youngsters trying to get into it.
