English Women’s Super League Officially Expands Next Season

Following Monday’s club vote, the English Women’s Super League (WSL) will undergo significant changes — expanding from 12 to 14 teams and WSL 2 becoming fully professional starting from the 2025-26 season.

The new format adopts a home-and-away system, where each team will play twice against others. This change requires 26 matchdays — with 24 weekends available and two midweek fixtures.

The promotion-relegation system also sees adjustments:

• Top two WSL 2 teams will be promoted to WSL
• 14th placed WSL team gets automatically relegated
• Play-off between 13th WSL and WSL 2 runner-up
• WSL 2 maintains 12 teams to preserve competition quality

“The league will continue to monitor and adjust recent changes if teams’ sustainability in either tier is at risk,” stated the league in their announcement.

Despite unanimous shareholder support, some parties express concerns about WSL 2 clubs’ financial capability to compete with WSL clubs. The yo-yo club phenomenon experienced by Crystal Palace and Bristol City — promotion followed by relegation the next season — becomes a special consideration in implementing this new format.