The Women's Super League Expands

The Women’s Super League (WSL) will be expanding from 12 teams to 14 from the start of the 2026-27 season, it’s been announced. The organization decided to make this change to make the WSL more competitive.

Currently, the bottom WSL club is relegated and the WSL 2 winners are promoted but that’s going to change. The top two teams from the second tier, known as WSL 2, will automatically be promoted as part of the expansion. The team that comes bottom of the WSL and the team that comes third in the WSL 2 will play each other, with the winner getting the final spot in the top league. That will mean there will be 14 teams in the WSL for the 2026-2027 season. There will be a play-off match between the WSL team in 13th position (second to bottom) and the team that comes second in the WSL 2. The winner of this match will then play in the WSL in 2027-2028.

Nikki Doucet, the boss of WSL Football, said: “Over the past few months, WSL Football has led a thorough and robust, consultative process backed by research and analysis which explored multiple options that could drive the game forward and help it reach its potential.” Meaning that the program was a professional and helped the game be more popular. She said the changes would “stimulate movement between leagues” and “increase opportunities” in winning the next year’s championship.

The Football Association (FA) will now need to formally approve the proposed changes for the 2026-27 season by the 31 July 2025 before they can be officially introduced and before the next season starts.