According to a ZDF report, the clubs in the women’s Bundesliga are said to have commissioned an agency to explore possible independence from the DFB. All clubs should have contributed financially to this step.
The reason: Revenues are growing, but losses are growing even more. Since 2012, the income has no longer been enough to cover personnel costs and, according to the DFB’s season report, the average deficit per club is getting larger and larger. While independent clubs like Turbine Potsdam have to stretch further and further, the women’s departments of the licensed clubs are cross-financed.
What exactly the “economically viable ecosystem” (Axel Hellmann, Eintracht Frankfurt) is supposed to be is currently unclear. It could be complete independence from the DFB, for example in the form of its own league organization like the DFL, or independent marketing.
Axel Hellmann, spokesman for the board of Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball AG.
This is how the Women’s Super League left the FA in England
Conclusions about what a path could look like can be made through the commissioned agency Portas. This is based in England and was already involved in the separation of the Women’s Super League (WSL) and Women’s Championship from the FA. Since August, both leagues have belonged to the newly founded company Women’s Professional League Limited (WPLL).
The WPLL company functions structurally in a similar way to the Premier League: all 23 clubs from the WSL and Championship are shareholders in the new company. Das received an interest-free loan of £20 million from the Premier League, which only has to be repaid once the WPLL generates revenue of £100 million.
A crucial difference to Germany: The step came from the association itself and was officially announced for a long time. The WSL was founded in 2010 and organized by the FA until the summer of 2024. As early as 2018, they made it clear that they did not want to run the league forever, similar to the Premier League. This was the first point of contact for a takeover until the FA decided to set up its own company for the WSL.
This process accelerated rapidly after the 2022 European Championship in England. Associations and clubs were able to incorporate the tournament’s successes into everyday league life like no other European league. Also because we had already been working towards this for years. In 2021, the association signed a TV contract for the WSL that brought in £7 million a year, around €8.2 million at the exchange rate at the time. To date, this is the most valuable TV contract in a European women’s football league.
WSL and WPLL: transition season 2024/25
If WPLL and general manager Nikki Doucet have their way, this amount should at least double in the future. However, the 2024/25 season is in some respects a transitional season because there was not enough time for major changes. The TV contract would actually have expired in the summer and was supposed to be renegotiated, but was initially extended by WPLL and the various broadcasters for one year under the old conditions.
In the meantime, to increase value, all Championship games and non-television WSL games will be streamed worldwide on YouTube. So far this has been done via the association’s own website, and the second league in particular is intended to be upgraded. The gap between the first and second English leagues is large in many respects, similar to that in Germany.
Doucet has had success with the League Cup so far: The cup has always had the same name sponsor since 2011, but they did not want to extend it again and there is currently no replacement. The WPLL’s first major contract was the extension with the name sponsor of the WSL and Championship for a further three years. Barclays will double the amount paid to 45 million pounds (around 54 million euros) from 2025.
First criticism of the treatment of WSL fans
There is criticism from fan groups and league observers because Doucet and the WPLL’s path is perceived as not very transparent. The new managing director remains vague in many of her statements and has already caused problems with others. She compared attending a women’s soccer game to the Glastonbury Festival and large parts of the fan scenes to Taylor Swift fans.
While there may be demographic overlap in the latter, British media comment that the way these comparisons are framed does not do justice to either group and misses the stadium reality. The worry is that fans are seen as a pure marketing tool for creating a very specific image.
Change of opinion towards spin-off at the DFB
In Germany, the discussion among clubs about possible independence has been going on for years and is sometimes carried out in the background, but sometimes very openly, such as before the DFB Bundestag in 2022. At that time, DFB General Secretary Heike Ullrich was in favor of staying of women in the DFB, the association’s attitude has now changed.
The former DFB vice-president Sabine Mammitzsch spoke in the DLF in March about a possible imminent spin-off of the women’s Bundesliga and in the ZDF article mentioned at the beginning, vice-president Célia Šašić says: “It is important that you find a framework in which women’s football can develop and The full potential is exploited in which context it takes place is not what matters. The important thing is that the opportunities are there and the framework conditions are there.”
