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Detailed accounts highlight the growing financial might of the elite, and the challenges the rest of the division faceThe financial figures for 2024-25, the most recent season available, for the eight Women’s Super League clubs who published detailed accounts illustrate a growing gulf between the rich and the poor. The Guardian breaks down the key numbers. Note, any figures exceeding £1m have been rounded to the nearest £10,000.Accounts for the year ending 31 May 2025 Turnover: £21.54m (up from £15.26m in 2023-24) Total wage bill: £11.32m (up from £9m) Profit/loss after tax: profit of £22,000 (previously lost £15,000) Broadcasting revenue: £2.02m (up from £956,000) Matchday revenue: £5.9m (up from £4.35m) Commercial revenue: £1.78m (up from £649,000) Wages as a % of revenue: 53%Financial health With their impressive attendances at the Emirates Stadium a significant outlier in the WSL, Arsenal lead the charts for matchday revenue comfortably. However, their vast revenues were predominantly made up of £11.9m of “group income”, listed separately to commercial revenue, while their broadcast revenue was boosted by £1.4m distributed by Uefa in relation to their successful run to the 2024-25 Champions League title. The accounts state Arsenal remain reliant on their parent undertaking, KSE UK Inc, for continued financial support.Accounts for the year ending 30 June 2025Turnover: £1.34m (up from £1.29m in 2023-24) Total wage bill: £5.00m (up from £3.53m) Profit/loss after tax: loss of £7.29m (previously lost £5.28m) Broadcasting revenue: £452,000 (up from £330,000) Matchday revenue: £344,000 (up from £221,000) Commercial revenue: £360,000 (down from £522,000) Wages as a % of revenue: 72%Financial health Brighton have sustained substantial losses year after year, but their accounts confirm chair, Tony Bloom, has fully committed, by letter, to continue to provide support in the form of non-recall of existing loans and the “provision of additional funding if required”. Brighton, who are determined to invest in the growth of women’s football for the long-term, are pushing ahead with plans for an £80m purpose-built women’s stadium.Accounts for the year ending 30 June 2025Turnover: £21.31m (up from £11.50m in 2023-24) Total wage bill: £14.52m (Up from £10.29m) Profit/loss after tax: loss of £17.10m (previously lost £8.42m) Broadcasting revenue: £2.27m (up from £1.70m) Matchday revenue: £3.01m (up from £2.69m) Commercial revenue: £16.03m (up from £11.50m) Wages as a % of revenue: 68%Financial health Chelsea’s loss of more than £17m seems alarming, but in reality a huge chunk of that relates to the purchasing of Kingsmeadow, the women’s team’s then-home stadium, from Chelsea Football Club Limited for a total consideration of £12.08m. It has been widely reported that the move helped Chelsea’s men’s team’s efforts to avoid a Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) breach. Since then, Chelsea have announced they will play all of their home league fixtures at Stamford Bridge, which they hope will boost their matchday revenues closer towards Arsenal’s levels.Accounts for the year ending 30 June 2025Turnover: £2.93m (down from £3.16m in 2023-24) Total wage bill: £2.87m (up from £2.38m) Profit/loss after tax: loss of £1.28m (previously lost £558,000) Broadcasting revenue: Unspecified Matchday revenue: Unspecified Commercial revenue: Unspecified Wages as a % of revenue: 98%Financial health Everton have struggled to bring in revenues akin to that seen at most of their WSL rivals and, as a result, their wages-to-revenue ratio is worryingly close to 100%. However, it should be remembered that this set of financial data relates to Everton’s final season playing home matches at Walton Hall Park, their meagre former home. In 2025-26 they moved home fixtures to Goodison Park, which is understood to have made a big difference to matchday revenue.Accounts for the year ending 31 May 2025Turnover: £6.13m (up from £4.91m in 2023-24) Total wage bill: £3.12m (up from £2.58m) Profit/loss after tax: profit of £168k (previously made £594,000) Broadcasting revenue: £962,000 (up from £907,000) Matchday revenue: £341,000 (up from £168,000) Commercial revenue: £4.83m (up from £3.83m) Wages as a % of revenue: 51%Financial heath Alongside Manchester United, Liverpool are one of only two WSL clubs to record a profit over the past eight years combined, and while their supporters may sometimes wish for more investment from the board and a more competitive team on the pitch, they are run as a relatively stable business, with wages consistently sitting between 50 and 60% of revenue.Accounts for the year ending 30 June 2025Turnover: £10.62m (up from £6.60m in 2023-24) Total wage bill: £8.49m (up from £7.04m) Profit/loss after tax: loss of £2.83m (previously lost £3.16m) Broadcasting revenue: £1.71m (Up from £889,000) Matchday revenue: £1.97m (up from £1.04m) Commercial revenue: £6.93m (up from £4.68m) Wages as a % of revenue: 80%Financial health City will hope a first WSL title triumph in a decade can lead to them ending Arsenal and Chelsea’s dominance of the division. It helps that their Abu Dhabi ownership opened their wallets to ensure top scorer Khadija Shaw performed a U-turn in May and signed a lucrative new contract. This year’s return to the Champions League should help City’s finances.Accounts for the year ending 30 June 2025Turnover: £10.74m (up from £9.17m in 2023-24) Total wage bill: £5.88m (up from £5.03m) Profit/loss after tax: profit of £397,000 (previously lost £119,000) Broadcasting revenue: £1.15m (down from £1.73m) Matchday revenue: £1.22m (down from £1.87m) Commercial revenue: £3.44m (down from £4.98m) Wages as a % of revenue: 55%Financial health Operating on just over a third of Chelsea’s wage bill, it is not surprising United have yet to win a WSL title and they are expected to slip further behind rivals in terms of playing budget due to a focus before the new season on youth development. It will anger some United fans to see their club have made a profit of £1.34m since reforming as a senior women’s side in 2018, during a time when their rivals are investing. Their bank balance will also have been aided further this summer by the £850,000 sale of Melvine Malard to Chelsea, a new club-record sale.Accounts for the year ending 30 June 2025Turnover: £4.41m (up from £3.39m in 2023-24) Total wage bill: £4.30m (up from £3.45m) Profit/loss after tax: loss of £2.83m (previously lost £2.73m) Broadcasting revenue: £267,000 (no change) Matchday revenue: £433,000 (down from £513,000) Commercial revenue: £3.39m (Up from £1.48m) Wages as a % of revenue: 98%Financial health Tottenham have upped their game on and off the pitch, increasing investment in the women’s team and being rewarded with a fifth-placed finish in the WSL last season. One of their biggest hindrances has been matchday revenue, which is 10 times smaller than Arsenal’s. Growing attendances has to be a priority.There were four clubs competing in the 2024-25 WSL season who did not publish detailed financial figures. Relegated Crystal Palace recorded a turnover of £1.32m (up from £914,000 in the 2023-24 campaign, when they were promoted) and made a post-tax loss of £1.99m. Leicester City, who survived the drop, recorded a loss after tax of £4.80m, having similarly lost £4.13m. Neither Aston Villa nor West Ham United have published detailed financial figures, throughout their time in the top tier, with West Ham explaining in their most recent submission to Companies House that they was entitled to exemption from audit under section 479A of the Companies Act 2006. Villa’s men’s team’s accounts did reveal that there was a total expenditure of £7.65m (up from £5.94m) on the women’s team in 2024-25. That would put the club roughly in mid-table in terms of overall expenditure.Grabbing the headlines this summer with a remarkable recruitment drive, London City Lionesses are heading into their second season as a top-flight club and are set to be one of WSL’s biggest spenders. Their accounts showed an operating loss of £10.6m for 2024-25, when they won the second-tier title, and their expenditure was widely expected to rise last season. That loss was more than 10 times their revenue (£902,000) and Michele Kang, the ambitious American businesswoman who is are financing the club, will know revenues need to grow.Birmingham City and Charlton Athletic have been promoted to the WSL before the new season, alongside the returning Crystal Palace. Birmingham look best-equipped to establish themselves in the top tier. Their 2024-25 turnover of £6.1m would have sat comfortably in mid-table in the WSL and they also made a profit of £141,000 in that period. Their wage bill of £2.47m – in a season when they finished second in the second tier and narrowly missed out on promotion on the final day – was only £400,000 smaller than the wage bill of Everton, who finished eighth in the WSL. Charlton’s accounts on Companies House are overdue.

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Two clubs are far ahead in wages and turnover, but London City Lionesses could be new force after big transfer movesAfter reviewing eight seasons’ worth of Women’s Super League clubs’ financial accounts, it seems appropriate to start by offering a sincere apology to any reader who has become accustomed to seeing the phrase “the big four” in Women’s Super League coverage in reference to Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United. Financially speaking, that is a myth. There has actually been no such thing in recent times. There has, in fact, been a big two: Arsenal and Chelsea.On the pitch that quartet have lifted every major domestic women’s trophy since 2014 but, off it, the two London clubs have left the rest of the pack in their dust in regard to wages and turnover, together recording more revenue in 2024-25 than the rest of the division combined.There are several other striking trends across the data. Namely, rapidly rising revenues and rapidly rising expenditure, as well as a heavy reliance on club owners to fund the sizeable losses. Cumulatively, WSL clubs have recorded post-tax losses of more than £111m when combining all of the figures available since the division switched to a winter calendar in the summer of 2017.Resisting that pattern are Manchester United, who have recorded a profit of £1.34m since relaunching their senior women’s team in the summer of 2018. In contrast, Chelsea have lost more than £36m over the same timeframe, and there are four further clubs – Brighton and Hove Albion, Leicester City, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur – who have each lost eight-figure sums when adding up their losses across those years.United, who this summer have made clear their intention to focus on youth development in an attempt to build long-term success, believing current levels of spending in the transfer market are unsustainable, are a unique case study. In the 2022-23 campaign, when they finished second, missing out on the WSL title on the season’s final day, their wages amounted to under 50% of their revenue, in a season when Manchester City, Tottenham and Brighton all spent more than 100% of their revenue on wages. This is not uncommon across men’s and women’s football. A recent report from Deloitte, for example, highlighted that 13 men’s Championship clubs spent more on wages than their revenue in 2024-25, with that division’s collective wage bill growing to more than £900m and to 96% of revenue.Wages for elite women’s players are soaring – – on average across the WSL they quadrupled between 2019 and 2025. Revenues rose strongly over that timeframe too, with the largest chunk of matchday revenue growth coming at Arsenal, whose gate receipts were just £45,000 per season nine years ago and totalled nearly £6m in 2024-25. On average across WSL clubs, for whom data is available, wages rose by 28.2% between 2023-24 and 2024-25, while over the same period post-tax losses increased by more than 53%, albeit a large chunk of that can be apportioned to Chelsea’s purchase of their former home ground, Kingsmeadow, from their parent club for about £12m during 2024-25.Chelsea – who won the league for a sixth straight year in 2024-25 – had a total wage bill that was more than five times larger than an Everton side who finished eighth in the WSL, and just under three times that of Manchester United, who finished third that season. Arsenal were the only other club, along with Chelsea, whose wage bill exceeded £10m. Both clubs recorded turnover that was around twice that of their Manchester rivals. Significantly, that came before their respective spending in the summer 2025 window, when Arsenal broke the £1m barrier to land the Canada winger Olivia Smith and Chelsea followed suit later that summer with the signing of Alyssa Thompson.Overall, the WSL has had a 75% increase in agents’ fees year-on-year, according to data released by the Football Association, with Chelsea exceeding the £1m mark last season. In comparison, West Ham, who finished 10th in 2025-26, spent £97,000, while relegated Leicester spent less than a tenth of what Chelsea did.Soon then there could be a new force in the WSL in the shape of London City Lionesses. Their wage bill for 2024-25, when they won promotion from the second tier, has not been made public, but their operating loss of £10.6m was more than 10 times their revenue of £902,000. That came before dramatic moves in the transfer market across the past three windows, which have included the signing of former Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas.As the WSL now gears up for the 2026-27 campaign – the first in which there are expected to be points penalties on the line for any teams whose player wage bills exceed a threshold of “80% of your revenue plus up to £4m of owners’ contributions” – the season ahead is one where the financial accounts will matter more than ever.

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She’s always been keen on the WSL, and the club have long had their eye on her – now the Norwegian midfielder feels ready to make an impactEmilie Joramo has long had her sights set on the Women’s Super League, but she held herself back from pushing for a move over from Scandinavia – until now.“I’d been interested in the league for a long time now and it was a goal for me to get here one day,” says Joramo, who Brighton signed on a free transfer at the end of June. “It was about finding the right path for me to get here. I didn’t want to go too early, I wanted to feel ready for it both physically and mentally. Now, everything just felt right.”Brighton had been tracking the Norwegian midfielder for some time and the 24-year-old was aware of their interest. An encouraging conversation with Brighton’s manager, Dario Vidosic, and good meetings with the club as her contract with Hammarby drew closer to its end meant she was at last ready to join the league she had followed from afar.That time in Sweden with Hammarby, with whom she reached the Europa Cup final last season, and before that in her homeland with Rosenborg who she helped win the Norwegian Cup for the first time in 21 years, was crucial in preparing her for her latest challenge.“I had so much fun at Hammarby and I’ve got so many good friends there,” she says. “I grew both as a football player and as a person in those years. I didn’t feel ready when I was 21, when I went to Sweden, to come over here. I felt like I needed to play a bit more, to play every game, that was really important for me.”That Brighton had been aware of her for some time was a boost too. “It’s reassuring for me that they really wanted me,” she says. “They hadn’t just watched a couple games, they’d been following me for years, and that’s really important to me because I’m not going to jump at the first opportunity I get. I like to think things through and it has to feel right for me.”For Brighton fans wondering what they are getting, there should be some excitement too. Joramo is fiercely motivated and feels she fits the possession-based style of football that Vidosic wants his team to play.“I would say that I’m a hardworking player,” she says, when asked to describe herself. “I always give 100% all of the time. I can’t do 50, 60, 70, I’m always 100%. I want to have the ball. I want to play, not just put balls in behind but to keep the ball , play with each other, [build] good relationships with the other players and think several steps ahead. They’ve always been things that I’m good at and I’m always wanting to get better at too.”Brighton and the WSL present a step up. “I think I can get challenged a lot here because things go much faster, the intensity is higher, you have a smaller amount of time when you have the ball,” she says. “So, it’s a perfect place for me to be at now to be challenged further and develop my strengths but also the parts that I’m not as strong at and need to develop more.”Arriving and starting life on the south coast was “a bit overwhelming” in the beginning: “There’s so many people to get to know, the staff is so much bigger than what I’ve been used to. So, instead of one physio you have five and you need to get to know everyone and get to know which person does which role. That’s always the way it is in a new team, of course, but it’s much bigger here.”Everyone has been very welcoming and her first impressions of training sessions under Vidosic have been positive. “I’ve only had two sessions with him so far,” she says, “but he seems very, very good at football tactics, how the game works, how to play good football, and that was important for me because I’m a player that wants to have the ball and always wants to try to get better and try to play good football together as a team, not only as individuals. This is what Dario wants, so it really fits my ambitions, my values and how I want to play.”She is finding her feet on the pitch, and starting to find them off it. Joramo’s girlfriend has moved to England with her, which has helped the transition and helps her escape football when needed. “I have to have other things to do besides football,” she says. “We’ve been to the beach and have been exploring the city. It’s so different for me to live by the beach, I’m from the mountains and the woods. This is like a holiday for me, and with the weather as well, it’s been so warm. It’s really nice.”The goal now is “to contribute as much as I can to this team and play as much as I can”, but Joramo’s patience as she worked towards her WSL goal should continue to serve her well. “I feel like I’m now in the place I want to be and develop in and I need to give it a bit of time in the beginning, because I can be very impatient,” she says. “I have to give it some time to get into it, get into the intensity and everything around the game here, because it’s so much more than what I’m used to in Sweden, this is so much bigger.”At the end of her first season in England is a big carrot, should Norway come through a two-legged playoff against Romania and then another against Albania or Wales and qualify for the 2027 Women’s World Cup.Joramo made her debut for the senior side in 2022 and has been on the fringes of the squad since, making three appearances in total and playing for the under-23s. In April she was on the bench for the senior side’s back-to-back qualification campaign wins over Slovenia and she is hopeful her WSL move helps her show what she can bring.“Hopefully this also will strengthen my opportunities with the national team,” she says. “I know this is the best league in the world, so if I get to play here, then I’ve done something right, I think.”

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Spain defender on swapping Barcelona for Bromley, embracing the contrasting style of the WSL – and her newfound love for beans and crumpets‘No, I can’t, I’m sorry, it’s a secret!” Mapi León roars with laughter, in response to being asked what persuaded her to join London City Lionesses. Does this bode badly for our interview? Fear not, the Spain centre-back is in as banterous and jovial a mood as you could imagine any new signing to be, as she embarks on her first major interview since signing for the Women’s Super League club.Across the course of our conversation, in bright sunshine outside a quiet hotel near Maidstone, it is evident that the 31-year-old could scarcely be happier about her decision to swap Barcelona for south-east England. She is sorely missing her cat, Bagheera (“Here, you ask for so many things for pets, you can’t [really] fly with them, it’s so many documents, so many things”) but, that aside, she is buoyant, relaxed and clearly embracing English life. She says she likes the “little bread” in the morning, and we eventually establish she is referring to crumpets, and reveals: “I like the beans in the morning. It’s really interesting. My Spanish teammates like Alexia [Putellas] and Jana [Fernández] are like: ‘What are you doing eating beans in the morning? You need to train.’ I go: ‘No, it’s fine I like it.’”However, English breakfasts were surely not what attracted her to Kent to play for London City Lionesses so, returning to that first question, she explains thoughtfully: “My body was craving something different. I spent many years in a comfortable position, because playing at Barça has been absolutely wonderful and very nice; it is a style of game that suits me a lot and coming to England, the football is very different from the Spanish one, at first glance. So, I think [the reason was] being able to challenge myself and see if I am capable. I am going to make an effort to adapt to this league and also to show myself that I’m able to compete in another style of play that is not the one that makes me stand out the most.”An undisputed club legend at Barcelona, León certainly stood out in Spain as the best ball-playing centre-back of her generation, and won seven league titles, seven Copa de la Reina’s and – most impressively – four Champions League titles, during a nine-year period of relentless dominance with Barcelona, whom she joined from Atlético Madrid in 2017.This summer she was one of four members of the Spain starting XI that beat England 4-0 in June in Mallorca to leave Barcelona, together with Arsenal’s new signing Ona Batlle, OL Lyonnes’ new winger Salma Paralluelo and, most notably, her London City Lionesses teammate Alexia Putellas. Together, León and Putellas drew raised eyebrows across the women’s game by swapping the reigning European champions for a lesser-known team that finished sixth in the WSL last term, but they have been joined by a series of other world-renowned names including the former England goalkeeper Mary Earps and the France winger Kadidiatou Diani.The club’s new signings meet the vision of their ambitious owner, the American businesswoman Michele Kang, of whom León says: “The impression I get is of an empowered woman, with a winning mindset, driven by a desire to see things improve and a drive to win. And that is a competitive and winning mentality. And if in the end, I want to be part of it because it is a club created for women and that is not common, I think it is beautiful and exciting.“Everything counts when you make this kind of a decision, and of course, [Kang] was an important part because seeing another woman doing so much to help women’s sports, and women’s football grow, I think it’s impossible not to value that. I think it’s something very powerful.”The club’s signings of Putellas and León were announced five days apart in July, which prompts the question: did they discuss their decision with one another and was it a case of “If you go, I’ll go too”?“No, not really, no. I think we take the issue of personal matters very seriously,” León says. “It’s a very different challenge. You come from a league where you win every year. Where you have achieved great things internationally and you come to a club that finished mid-table with some different challenges. And I think it is a very personal decision for each individual to make, choosing what is best for you personally.“[You ask yourself] what do you really need right now? What is your body telling you? What do you think is best for you to keep improving, to keep pushing yourself, and to maintain that ambition? And I think each person needs different things. So, there wasn’t much communication between us. And that the decision wasn’t planned.”The more she reflects on her move, the tactical differences between Liga F and the WSL become clear as a key factor, as the Zaragoza-born defender continues: “The English league can give me a lot. You can learn a lot. The transitions, the style of play, playing with more space. The pressing is different too because I’m used to teams often sitting back in a mid-to-low block, whereas here, it’s probably more of a high press. I’d like to bring a bit of calm to the game.“I don’t know if that really fits with English football, but no, of course, I don’t want to change the system, but simply the timings as a centre-back. I am a centre-back so I see everything. And I like to control a little bit of the timings so maybe we can try to have a little bit more of the ball. Or there are many spaces, so we can go. So I like to have a bit of control.“The league is so competitive, the commitment the league is making, the clubs, I mean, I think everything makes it very attractive to come because I have been following the English league over these years and it feels like it can’t let you relax even for a second, not in any match, not during the match. Not a single second can relax you, because the English league is much more competitive.”Her new side open the season at home to Manchester United on 4 September. Until then, she is embracing a comparatively quiet life and enjoying not being recognised in public, adding: “It’s so different [here]. It’s not a bad thing but, I can just walk to buy food, and no one recognises me! And sometimes it’s nice, because in Barcelona we are not ‘famous’ but people know us. It’s one of the many amazing things. But also sometimes you miss this freedom. Like, just go and shop.”How long that newfound anonymity will continue is hard to tell, as it will surely not take long for León to become one of the most recognisable faces in the WSL if she can bring her form for Spain and Barcelona straight to London City Lionesses. For now, she can enjoy her beans and her crumpets in peace.