The weather may have ensured the postponement of six FA Cup games, but it could not disrupt the narrative: that cup upsets in women’s football are disappointingly rare.
Nine games played and nine expected results, with 44 goals scored by the winning teams, an average of 4.9 a game, and Exeter City’s goal the solitary one scored by a losing side. Of the eight games played between teams on different levels of the pyramid it was 42 goals scored for winning sides and the one against.
In the fourth round last season the story was the same. Of the fixtures pairing teams in different divisions, just one threw up a surprise, Reading suffering a 2-1 loss at home to Wolves. However, Reading were outliers in the 2023-24 season, on the brink of collapse as a semi-professional outfit with the club voluntarily relegating the side at the end of the season. The season before, there were two examples of clubs punching up and taking out a team in a league above them, when Birmingham City earned a 1-0 win at Everton and Cardiff City beat Burnley 4-1.
There is a problem here, it’s not getting better, and it is likely to get worse. The reality is the gap between the WSL and Championship is large, as shown by Chelsea cruising past Charlton with a 4-0 win, dominating with 83% possession and 350 passes to 77. But the gap between the Championship sides and National League sides is also large, as demonstrated by Sunderland’s 7-1 defeat of Exeter and London City’s 5-0 win at Fulham.
The difference between the men’s and women’s game is how far down the pyramid professionalism goes. Outside the WSL and Championship, only the smallest handful of sides operate as semi-professional outfits and those outside the top two divisions cannot compete with the physicality, athleticism and other benefits that full-time or part-time training ensures.
As long as investment goes into the top of the game at a greater rate than it does at the bottom, the gap will grow between them. The decision to give the Championship clubs 25% of the WSL 2021’s broadcast rights deal, a split that has been maintained in more recent deals, was bold, and a markedly different percentage to the men’s game. However, it enshrines the gap.
The only way to close the gap is to flip that script and invest in the Championship disproportionately, or equalise it (50% to the Championship and 50% to the WSL) and encourage Championship clubs to invest to the same extent as WSL clubs. To continue as is, club owners at Championship level need to invest to an even greater extent than WSL sides (to match their own funding and then spend even more to plug the difference in broadcast money) or the gap will grow.
Those equations ignore the National League and the gap between those leagues and the top two divisions, now run separately by the Women’s Professional Leagues Limited (WPLL).
Meanwhile, the gap grows even bigger by the weighting of FA Cup prize money, which gives far greater rewards to teams coming in at the later stages than those competing in the early rounds.
In some respects, it all makes sense: results are rewarded, investment is rewarded and committed clubs are rewarded. However, if there is to be a genuinely thriving football pyramid then things have to be done differently. A holistic approach to the development of women’s football in England could be revolutionary, positioning it as progressive and forward-thinking. As it stands, the gap gets bigger, Cup upsets are nigh on impossible, highlighting this issue, and the phrase ‘the magic of the cup’ feels very hollow.
