We also look at the Minnesota Aurora of the W League, which is planning to go professional within the next five years, and will consider one of the now three professional leagues in North America. We preview the inaugural Brandi Chastain Cup to crown a championship of the summer amateur leagues. We also look at a plan to launch global 7-a-side tournaments, with the first one to be held in Portugal this summer.
Finally, we catch the readers up on the bizarre situation in England where Wolverhampton Wolves were in the fight for a promotion spot from the Division II Northern Regional League, finishing three points behind Nottingham Forest for the lone promotion spot, but the players were told after their last game that the club had not filed the necessary paperwork with the Division 2 Championship, presumably because they didn’t want to spend the extra money to compete at the professional level. Opps—the players and fans weren’t happy with this news.
NWSL and WPSL Plan to Launch Women’s Division 2 Leagues Next Seasons—taking very different approaches to their franchise recruitment
On April 25, the National Women’s Soccer League—the 13-year-old Division 1 League—announced that it had filed an application with U.S. Soccer for a division two league to launch in 2026 with eight teams.
According to CBS Sports, league commissioner Jessica Berman compared the new Division II league to the multi-tier minor league baseball leagues in the U.S., writing in the proposal to U.S. Soccer that it was: “Imperative that NWSL creates a robust pipeline for world-class athletes to fuel the (existing Division I league’s) explosive growth.”
However, unlike the minor league baseball system, with most teams located in smaller towns and cities across the country, their new teams will play in the same stadiums as the senior teams, playing each other Division II team in the league twice, for a 14 game regular season. The top four teams in the eight team league will qualify for the playoffs. The plan is that all NWSL teams will field a Division II team by the fourth year—2029.
According to CBS Sports, the eight teams who plan to enter the new league for next season include: Bay FC, Gotham FC, KC Current, NC Courage, Orlando Pride, Racing Louisville, Seattle Reign and Washington Spirit. That would leave the two expansion teams for 2026—Denver and Boston—along with Angel City FC, Chicago Stars, Houston Dash, Portland Thorns, San Diego Wave and Utah Stars to join in future years. The league will also be open to franchises that are unaffiliated to the NWSL.
This reporter think this is a brilliant move by the NWSL and essentially sets up a League One and League Two loop, like in England with the WSL and second tier Championship, which some have referred to as WSL 2. It is common in Europe for top tier men’s teams to have a second club in a lower tier (notably Real Madrid in Spain).
NWSL teams have always struggled with what to do with players that they are tracking and could call up later in the season, using W-League and WPSL teams as unofficial second (reserve) teams, but for only a relatively small number of players. This new league also will attract players into the NWSL umbrella, who may not immediately be ready for the top tier, but will still be seen by league coaches and officials on a continual basis.
The down side is, that playing in the NWSL home stadiums will limit ticket revenue—to probably zero in a few cases—as most people won’t want to see the second team when they could just as easily see the top side, with the result that the average attendance for most teams would be “a man and his dog” as they say in the U.K. Putting these teams in smaller communities in the area—even while using the branding (Courage II, Pride II, Reign II, etc.) will help to grow even a small fan base in the teams’ region and help build the sport.
The NWSL sees the second tier as an opportunity to build roster depth since the league ditched the college draft after the 2024 season. They can also use the Division II teams to allow injured players to feature in rehabilitation games as they transition back to their Division I side. The league office emphasized that they can also use the new league to develop coaches, referees and front office staff to hone their own skill sets.
The league also stated that the new league would be: “a testing ground for creative marketing strategies to grow the fan base of the women's game.” That will be interesting, but again, as a good test market for these ideas, I think they need to be in smaller cities in their states rather than playing in their Division I home stadiums.
It is interesting that this announcement came about a week after the summer amateur league WPSL announced a plan to start a Division II league in 2026, after the men’s World Cup, with a full launch in 2027.
The WPSL had originally planned to launch in the third division, announcing plans in early 2023, but now has decided to move up a tier to fill a gap in U.S. Soccer’s professional pyramid for women at the second tier level. League official Sean Jones said: “WPSL Pro is the bridge that’s been missing—not just for players, but for the communities, investors and brands ready to be part of the next chapter in women’s sports.”
Benno Nagel, co-founder and project director of WPSL Pro, added in a statement: “We are building WPSL Pro for players, for clubs, and for communities, and we’re excited to deliver a league that can unlock the still untapped potential of women’s soccer at scale.”
WPSL Pro is a spin off from the summer amateur WPSL (Women’s Premier Soccer League), which launched in 1998 and will have a record 150 teams for this summer, which will be its 27th season. Many in North America have seen the summer amateur leagues as Division III—WPSL, the W-League and UWS.
The WPSL will run a short season in the fall of 2026 before going with a full April-to-October schedule in 2027—mirroring the NWSL calendar. In 2026, the league hopes to have 16-20 teams and each franchise must pay a $1 million franchise fee. The WPSL Pro league already has announced 15 teams, one of which is in Cleveland, which was a finalist for the 16th NWSL franchise for 2026—bidding against Cincinnati and ultimate winners Denver.
According to Jeff Kassouf, the founder and publisher of Equalizer Soccer and a writer for ESPN, the Cleveland group plans to build a $50 million, 10,000-seat downtown stadium for the women’s team and an MLS Next Pro (third division men’s) team, which will be a slightly scaled-down version of its NWSL stadium proposal. The WPSL has been regularly involved in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio with teams like the Cleveland Ambassadors and Croatia Juniors. The league emphasized that: “Securing the market for WPSL PRO capitalizes on the league’s commitment to the advancing and supporting the women’s game in the area.”
The 15 teams announced for WPSL Pro for 2026 are:
Austin Rise FC (Texas)
AC Houston Sur FC (Texas)
Georgia Impact FC
Indios Denver FC
North Dakota Fusion FC
Northern Colorado Rain FC
WPSL NE Ohio (Cleveland)
Oklahoma City FC
Real Central New Jersey (Trenton)
Sioux Falls City FC (South Dakota)
WPSL SoCal
Soda City FC (Irmo, South Carolina)
Southstar FC (Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas)
The Town FC (Oakland, California)
FC Wichita (Kansas)
The WPSL actually had a professional loop (considered Division I at the time) for the 2012 season with eight teams, which was named WPSL Elite and filled the gap year between Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS), which folded after the 2011 season due to financial difficulties, and U.S. Soccer’s launch of the NWSL in 2013 after the 2012 Summer Olympics in the U.K. Their teams and the league they joined from were:
ASA Chesapeake Charge (WPSL)
Boston Breakers (WPS)
Chicago Red Stars (WPSL—they had played in WPS in 2009 and 2010, for part of that time under new U.S. WNT head coach Emma Hayes)
FC Indiana Lionesses (W League and WPSL—they effectively were the Haitian WNT in training under head coach Shek Borkowski)
New England Mutiny (WPSL)
New York Fury (WPSL)
Philadelphia Fever (No previous affiliation, though the Philadelphia Independence played in the WPS in 2011).
Western New York Flash (WPS—They won the league championship 4-2 win on penalties, after a 1-1 tie, over Chicago in Rochester, New York).
If both leagues start next year, they would become the initial second division professional women’s leagues in the States. U.S. Soccer sets minimum standards for each level of play through its Pro Licensing Standards. A second-division women's professional league must have at least six teams to apply for sanctioning.
All stadiums must seat at least 2,000 people, and principal owners of teams must have a net worth of at least $7.5 million. Fifty percent of the teams need to be in a metropolitan area with a population of 500,000-plus. The eight NWSL sides listed to start at the Division II level next season exceed both the population and stadium requirements.
One issue is player salaries—as we discussed last month (see: The Week in Women's Football: Paige exclusive on Halifax Tides, England tour and NSL - TribalFootball.com)—the minimum salary in the USL Super League this season was similar to the NWSL minimum from 2024 at $38,000. The Canadian Northern Super League, which kicked off its first season last month, has a minimum salary of CDN$50,000 (US$36,000 in a turbulent currencies market this year due to a new U.S. President and new tariff threats against Canada).
Thus, all of the Division I leagues entry salaries are very similar. Where these new Division II league salaries will be set is important and sets a standard for the future. The WPSL, the amateur league founded in 1998, has always been inconsistent in its standards and policies in terms of team budgets, scheduling, participating in the playoffs and logistics matters.
There is the expectation among many in the game in the States that their salary payments for the new WPSL Pro will be minimal—with one professional women’s coach telling me last week that, only half joking, that they will pay “$1,000 to $2,000 a month,” which is more a level of covering expenses and certainly not a professional level compensation. Even the NWSL for years did not cover trialists expenses so how much they pay their Div II players will be quite interesting—if they have future first-team prospects in the league, they have to pay salaries that are above a poverty level. A WPSL Pro spokesperson told ESPN that the league is exploring the idea of giving players equity in the league. That is fine if the league is successful but is more of a longer-term goal and the league needs to focus on setting a solid salary and benefits structure for players.
Interestingly, MLS has floated the idea starting a minor league women’s loop in the past year, piggybacking off of its MLS Next Pro League (Division III) for developing players. MLS has never been seen as a friend to women’s soccer, dating back to the turn of the century when the WUSA launched as the first women’s pro league from 2001-2003—MLS was trying to start a competing league at the time and was a rumored contributor to an earlier effort failing to launch after the 1996 Olympic Games in the States.
Over the past year, the USL Super League launched as a Division I league—after initially saying that they were going in at the Division II level—but is largely in smaller markets and attracts a much smaller fan based than the NWSL. To its great credit, the league has certainly been stable and is adding to its eight founding members with a team in Jacksonville next year (see our column last month: The Week in Women's Football: Paige exclusive on Halifax Tides, England tour and NSL - TribalFootball.com).
In Canada, the Northern Super League launched last month with six teams, drawing over 14,000 fans to each of their opening two matches in Vancouver and Toronto. Though it is Canada’s first women’s professional football league, it is viewed by many as a second tier league, leveraging a close relationship between founder Diana Matheson (41)—who played 206 games for Canada’s WNT, was a founding player in the NWSL in 2013 and retired in 2021— and the NWSL’s commissioner Jessica Berman.
Both the Super League and NSL have seen a sizeable number of loan players from NWSL teams, which—in minor league baseball—denotes a top tier/lower tier designation assumption. We have no complaints about that, just merely noting the trend. The two leagues combined have created around 300 new professional playing spots, allowing both the U.S. and Canadian leagues to bring home players from abroad, and bring in interesting imports as well.
In North America, we are very much in new territory for women’s football and things will sort out in terms of levels of play (Division 1, II, III, etc.) but the key criterion of city population, player salaries, organization, number of internationals in the league and relationship to other leagues will fluctuate at times, but it is a very nice problem to have with so many professional women’s football leagues to track.
This column will continue to follow these Division II efforts and how it changes the career path prospects for North American players as well as those from abroad.
The USL W League’s Minnesota Aurora is considering trying to join the NWSL, Super League or Canada’s Northern Super League
You would think that a USL W League franchise would automatically look solely to join their Super League when they wanted to go fully professional, which was a long term goal when the league launched last year. However, that assumption is just one option for the supernova Minnesota Aurora FC, which will play its fourth season in the W League this summer. This unique community-owned club can pick and choose where it wants to play and leagues will be in line courting them, including the new Northern Super League in Canada.
The Aurora was one of the early candidates to join the NWSL for their latest expansion slots (ultimately going to Denver) in 2026 but withdrew their bid during the process, wanting to make sure that their organization could handle such a massive move up in levels, with everything that surrounds it—budgets, funding, player development, stadium identification, etc.. They seem to be working on that now after hiring a chief of staff who will work year-round to build out the necessary infrastructure to help carry the team into its professional iteration—Saara Hassoun, who helped NJ/NY Gotham FC win the 2023 NWSL title.
Allie Schmidt, co-founder and interim president of Minnesota Aurora said: “Reality really hit us this summer when we did have to pull out of our NWSL bid. It gave us the chance to step back and say, ‘okay, we’re not going pro immediately, let’s reassess from a business perspective, from a fan perspective, from a player perspective, and figure out what we really need.’ The biggest thing that came out of that was we needed a leader in place who understood both the people side of things, and with the soccer IQ within the landscape already, to help us make that next jump.”
Hassoun’s role is to develop a sustainable culture both on and off the field that will set the club up for its eventual second try at a bid to turn pro. Hassoun had followed the Aurora since they started in 2021 and was impressed by their efforts to do everything as professionally as possible.
Hassoun said: “It’s an opportunity to influence every piece of the business, including optimizing our revenue streams, our processes and procedures, our operational standards, our staff and how we prioritize our work. The overarching theme for my role and Aurora in general is how do we create the absolute strongest, most solid base of operations for where we are now so as we grow, which is our goal and intention, that we can make sure everything is tightened up and we can attract the investors we need to be able to take on that next step.”
The Aurora can now decide the level of budget commitments that they want to make, considering all three leagues. The NWSL has grown from an expansion franchise fee of less than $2 million for Racing Louisville in 2020 to the then record $53 million that Bay FC paid in 2023, and just recently to double that for Denver at $110 million, who will enter the league next year. The Super League expansion fee expense was $10 million per team last year for the initial eight sides. For Canada’s NSL, each of the six teams in this inaugural season paid a CDN $1 million (US$725,700) expansion fee.
Hassoun added: “Obviously the team was really disappointed when they had to withdraw their bid; it’s not a secret that we just did not have the investment that we needed to be able to do the project in the way that we needed to do it. We are now in a phase where we have an opportunity to learn from that process, which is part of why this (chief of staff) role was created. They realized that they needed someone to help get everybody on the same page and create a strategic path forward.”
All three leagues should be beating down the Aurora’s door to get them to join as they are an established team with strong community support, a winning side, an exceptionally broad investor base and are establishing the infrastructure to be able to go fully professional, up from its amateur 10 week season during the summer.
Schmidt concluded: “At the end of the day, our goal is to become a professional team. However, what professional is can be a lot of different things, and (Hassoun) can come in and really help us establish what the best case for Aurora as a professional team means. Everything is on the table, and we’re so incredibly excited for Saara to join us.”
This unique club plays in Eagan, a suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul at TCO Stadium, the training facility of the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League. The club currently has 5,337 investors who come from all 50 states (70% from the state of Minnesota) and 19 countries.
They average 5,000 fans a game—which would lead every team in the Super League this season (see our column from last month: The Week in Women's Football: Paige exclusive on Halifax Tides, England tour and NSL - TribalFootball.com) and they are not far off of the bottom three in the NWSL in 2024:
North Carolina Courage at 6,362, Racing Louisville at 6,208 and Houston Dash at 6,194. They have never lost a regular season match. Aurora plays in the Central Conference’s Heartland Division with five teams—two from Illinois, and one each from Minnesota, South Dakota, Wisconsin—in the now 93 team league across 15 divisions.
This reporter’s view is that for the investment, the USL Super League would be a good first choice, followed by the Northern Super League. The NWSL is such a massive investment up front just to join, but the Twin Cities certainly has the fan base to support the team, as it currently has a major league baseball, football, NBA and NHL team, along with Minnesota United of Major League Soccer. If the Aurora wants to target the NWSL over the next few years, I wouldn’t bet against this group; the Aurora would be a benefit to any league that they decide to join.
U.S. Soccer Launches the Brandi Chastain Cup for top teams from the Summer Amateur Leagues
The U.S. Soccer Federation’s Adult Council announced the launch of the Brandi Chastain Cup, the country’s first premier elite women’s amateur championship across multiple leagues. This tournament’s goal is to: “elevate women’s soccer by bringing together the top amateur (pre-professional) teams from across the country under a single competition,” which is sanctioned by U.S. Soccer. One game will feature the New England Mutiny of United Women’s Soccer (UWS) and the Richmond Ivy of the USL W League on June 5 at City Stadium in Richmond, VA. The winner of the match will face the winner of the second game, which will be determined on a date and at a venue yet to be established.
In the other semifinal game on May 22, Pan World Elite (of Salt Lake City, Utah) of the USASA (U.S. Adult Senior Division and the 2024 national champions from the U.S. Women’s Amateur Cup) will face the California Storm (Sacramento) of the WPSL—the five time national champions and three time national championship runners-up. The teams will play at Westminster University in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The New England Mutiny are the defending Eastern Conference Champions and UWS National Finalist in 2024, losing to Santa Clarita (CA) Blue Heat on penalties (6-5—after a 2-2 tie). The Mutiny will begin its 25th season in 2025, making them one of the oldest women’s teams in U.S. history. Signature moments for the club, include a narrow 4-3 defeat to the Chinese Women’s National Team in a pre-Olympic exhibition in 2004. In 2012, Mutiny defeated the Boston Breakers in league play 2-1, thereby making them the only amateur team to ever defeat a professional team in a competition.
Brandi Chastain, a co-founder of Bay FC in the NWSL and long involved in WPSL and a Women’s World Cup winner in 1999 with the U.S., said: “Women’s soccer in the United States has an incredible foundation built by generations of talented athletes. The Brandi Chastain Cup will provide an essential platform to showcase the country’s top amateur players, while further uniting the women’s soccer landscape. I’m honored to support this initiative and can’t wait to see the talent on display.”
A new 7-a-side tourney for women will launch this summer in Portugal
World Sevens Football is a new seven-a-side football series for women that will have a $100 million investment over the next five years, with a similar level of prize money to the Women’s Champions League ($5 million in total). Of that, $2.5 million will go to the winning club, with the understanding that a “hefty” portion will go to the players and coaches.
The format for matches will be 30 minutes in length, split into two 15-minute halves, with rolling (and unlimited) substitutions. A half-sized pitch will be used, with slightly smaller goals than would normally be seen in 11-a-side-football. The teams are set to be divided into two groups of four, before a semi-final and final. The organizers are touting high scoring games that will be popular with a new generation of fans, as is found in futsal and indoor soccer in the U.S.—six a side played largely within hockey dasher boards. Former English international Anita Asante is a member of the tournament’s advisory council and said: “It’s supposed to be exciting and creative with lots of freedom of expression. That’s why I was so excited to get on board.”
To reduce player fatigue, teams can bring a full-sized squad and then will select a 14-player squad for each 30-minute match; they can also use rolling subs, so it’s expected that a typical player might play fewer than 90 minutes of football in total across the entire event. Asante said: “The competition rules are designed with the players in mind, to cope with load.”
With the Women’s EURO Finals this summer in Switzerland, in theory players could take part in both events, since the first 7-v-7 tournament will not fall during a FIFA international window. The decision will be up to the clubs but I would suspect that we would not see European internationals competing in the new tournament and that squads would be a mix of some first team players and reserves/youth players.
The tournament will also not be overseen by FIFA/UEFA which—for now—oversees 11-a-side football and not seven-a-side, though they have folded in beach football (men’s tournament this year is in The Seychelles) and futsal (Women’s Finals in Philippines in November of 2025). World Sevens Football has had dialogue with FIFA and UEFA and does not want to be seen as a competitor to the 11-a-side game.
The inaugural tournament will be staged from May 21-23 in Estoril, Portugal, on a grass pitch at Estádio António Coimbra da Mota, where a “stadium within a stadium” will be built around a half-sized pitch for the seven-a-side games. Estoril is close to Lisbon, which is hosting the Women’s Champions League final on May 24. The venues for the series’ future events have not yet been announced, but the organizers say they are planning to go to cities “across the United States, Mexico, Asia, Europe and beyond”. Tentative plans are for a second tournament at the end of 2025 in the Americas.
World Sevens Football is backed by a vast financial investment from the US-based philanthropist Jennifer Mackesy, co-owner of the NWSL club Gotham FC. Former US women’s international and Bay FC co-founder Aly Wagner is the new tournament’s chief of strategy, while a player advisory council, which—in addition to Asante—is led by former internationals Tobin Heath (U.S.), Caroline Seger (Sweden), Kelley O’Hara (U.S.) and Laura Georges (France), the latter previously spent more than seven years as the secretary general of the French Football Federation. DAZN, the Germany-based streaming platform that carries the UEFA Women’s Champions League, will broadcast every game.
For the first tournament this summer, which is an invitation event, the eight teams will include two from England’s WSL—Manchester City and Manchester United—along with one team each from France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.
The teams include
Ajax (Netherlands)
Bayern Munich (Germany
Benfica (Portugal)
FC Rosengard (Sweden)
Manchester City (England)
Manchester United (England)
Paris St. Germain (France)
Roma (Italy)
It will be interesting to see how popular this new tournament series will be with fans, players, coaches and league executive. For football, there is precedence with the Gerard Pique-led Kings League (7-a-side) starting in Spain in 2023, which quickly added a women’s division and expanded to Mexico last year. The teams are created largely without current internationals and division one players, and there is lots of in-game entertainment to appeal to social media followers. In Women’s Basketball in the States, a new 3-on-3 league called Unrivaled (with six teams) played late last season in Miami, providing 36 elite WNBA players with off-season conditioning without having to travel to different cities.
The Unrivaled League drew strong television ratings. For years, many WNBA players went abroad after the season (which typically runs from May to October), to join teams in Australia, China, Russia (where there are still a number of non-WNBA players in the league), Turkey and Venezuela among others. Each players was paid a six-figure salary, averaging $200,000. The WNBA’s 29th season will launch over the next few weeks.
For the next women’s football tournament later this year, there are expected to be a different set of eight teams. We would expect to see at least one NWSL side, as Angel City FC—though it would fall during the regular season—had expressed interest in playing in the Portugal-based inaugural event. The first event in 2026 could also include another unique set of club teams. This will help the organizers avoid clashes with domestic schedules and reduce the load on individual teams by inviting different teams for every event during the first few tournaments.
Wolverhampton Wanderers WFC players 'devastated' that their club didn't apply for promotion
Players from Wolverhampton Wanderers “Wolves Women” in the third tier Women’s Premier Division North were stunned that their ultimately unsuccessful battle for promotion was “all for nothing” as the club had already decided not to apply to compete in the Women's Championship if they had won the title for 2025-26. Wolves finished three points behind champions Nottingham Forest for the one promotion spot to the second tier Championship. On the final day, the players still thought they had a chance at promotion, but the club’s officials had earlier taken away that opportunity.
Wolves midfielder Beth Merrick said on X: “Imagine fighting for promotion all season to find out our Championship bid was never submitted. As a group we are absolutely devastated to finish the season this way and believe it speaks volumes about the club’s ambitions for the women’s team.”
The players weren’t informed of this until after their final match. Players and fans felt that Wolves decidedly showed a lack of ambition and the players felt “lied to” and shown “a lack of respect.”
Three players were given contracts for 2024-25 but not on a full-time basis. Last summer, the women’s under-21s squad was dropped and it is claimed a number of players are still not paid salaries, only their expenses. It is particularly troubling that Wolves have submitted applications for the Women’s Championship in previous seasons and lost in a play-off final to Southampton in 2022.
The men’s team meanwhile has been in the English Premier League since the 2018-19 campaign and is currently in 13th place with 41 points from 35 games. I also am deeply disappointed in Wolves as I have always been partial to them—they helped relaunch professional soccer in the U.S. in 1967, winning the first title in the U.S.A. (later NASL) 6-5 in overtime as the Los Angeles Wolves over the Washington Whips (Aberdeen of Scotland). Later, a number of Wolves helped launch the Portland Timbers in the NASL in 1975 and the team went all the way to the NASL Final, losing to Tampa Bay Rowdies.
Peter Withe was the main striker on that first Timbers side and later played for England and won a UEFA Champions Cup with Aston Villa. This news is just a dagger in the heart and this situation can’t be repeated in the future—it hurts the players, the fans and the integrity of the game.
The WSL has done so well in recent years, with increased crowds and playing in larger stadiums while attracting world class players. The 2021 Women’s EURO was a tremendous tournament and set records for attendance and took the game to a new level in England. That’s why Wolves’ shenanigans are so bad; it just sets the game back and shows that women’s football teams, particularly in England, are still suspect to the whims of owners who prioritize men’s football at all costs, even at the expense of women’s and youth sides. This situation was just so disrespectful to the women’s team’s players coaches and fans.
Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribal Football. His latest book Beyond Bend it Like Beckham on the global game of women’s football. Get your copy today. Follow Tim on X: @TimGrainey