Manchester United start campaign for stronger financial regulations in women’s game – Man United News And Transfer News

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An official at Manchester United has called for stronger financial regulation in the women’s game to prevent the gap between clubs widening.

According to The Athletic, Francesca Whitfield, United’s head of group planning, has called for a European-wide stance to be taken on players wages.

Whitfield’s comments came at the Women’s Football Summit in London on Monday where she said action should be taken sooner than it was in the men’s game because “the game is in a different space”.

She said, “We should be looking to adopt financial regulation much earlier in the women’s game than we did in the men’s game to stop that gap widening.”

“Currently in the WSL we have a salary cap system which is 40 per cent of revenue but that includes parent club income, meaning the larger clubs naturally benefit from shirt deals on the men’s side and that’s creating a gap that is affecting the product.”

Whitfield stressed the importance of this being a European wide problem that needed tackling.

“This can’t be something that we just address domestically, this has to be something we address on a European level to make sure that the European tournaments are the best and we’re at the forefront of that,” she said.

After reiterating that the women’s game can’t just follow in the footsteps of the men’s she continued, “We need to ensure that we can invest but we equally need to attract investment.”

“Smaller clubs are not able to invest at that level, so how do we encourage them to do so if it’s not a fair playing field and they can’t possibly ever be competitive with how things currently are?”

Whitfield went on to discuss the issue of transfer fees and player salaries, a tough subject for the club currently as they failed to persuade Alessia Russo and Ona Batlle to sign new contracts.

“We are in a position where we need to spend enough to keep up and challenge our counterparts and the minute one of those will spend a bit or is prepared to pay a record transfer fee, ten we have to match that.”

She continued, “That is where the question becomes: what is the right level? Because at the minute, wage costs and transfer fee costs growth are outstripping revenue growth.”

The WSL saw a huge increase in attendances and ticket sales following the Lionesses’ success at the Euros last year, however there is still room for improvement.

She pointed out that it was hard to predict when that might catch up and when the revenue will “come organically in the women’s game.”

Whitfield said, “We were ahead of where we expected to be but that meant our contracts needed to catch up. We want longer contracts now because we want to build a team for the long term.”

“That is a challenge when one or two-year deals have been common place. We wouldn’t keep players to lesser amounts if the market rate goes up, it’s just we want to keep the players.”

To do this going forward, Whitfield has called for financial regulations to be able to “at some stage, have a cap on the transfer fee and wage inflation”.

She concluded by saying “It’s coming at the detriment of investing in the infrastructure.”

United have lost two players as free agents at the conclusion of this season, two of their best players and have yet to secure replacements.