Karen Carney says her government-commissioned review of women’s football will focus on building the game up from its foundations, as she announced Ian Wright, Hope Powell and the head of the NFL in Europe, Brett Gosper, as part of an expert panel offering guidance.
Carney is continuing to gather evidence and remains open-minded as to the outcome, saying it would be “naive” not to consider alternative futures for professional women’s football, including the possibility of a closed American-style league.
“I want the women’s game to be the best,” the former England international said. “I don’t want to put a label on where it could be. A lot of people have told me: ‘Don’t settle. Don’t settle, keep pushing.’ Women’s football is a start-up business model; you’ve got to start with the foundations otherwise it will all crumble. This is a product – we have to make it the best product possible. We [also] have to do it at the right pace.”
Carney has selected six people to offer specialist support. Alongside Wright, Powell and Gosper there will be input from Lisa O’Keefe, the creator of the This Girl Can campaign, Dan Jones, the creator of Deloitte’s football money lists, and Jane Purdon, the former director of governance at the Premier League and head of the Women in Football Group.
Carney said she had selected the panel for their “experience, expertise and understanding” of the game. “Best of all, I know they share my ambition to make the UK one of the best places in the world to play, watch and invest in women’s football.”
Powell, the former Lionesses and Brighton manager, said she was delighted to join the panel. “It gives us the opportunity to check, challenge and discuss the progression of women’s football,” she said.
Wright, the former Arsenal and England striker, said he was “ready to go” to ensure “what Karen, Kelly Smith, Hope Powell and the generation of women and girls including our Euros winners went through never happens again. We can build this right from the bottom to the very top.”
A review into the women’s game in England was commissioned last September after a recommendation in the fan-led review of football governance. The review is to look at three central areas: audience and growth, commercial and broadcasting, and structures and governance.
Carney was reluctant to air definitive thoughts on what she has observed and said she remained open to new ideas. “There’s no stone left unturned in terms of looking at how to set up the women’s game,” she said. “Nothing is being ruled out.”
This includes the question of whether women’s professional sides should be affiliated with men’s clubs and the possibility of changing the set-up of the women’s professional game, moving away from the open model of the Super League and Championship and into a closed system like the National Women’s Soccer League in the USA. Carney said it would be “naive not to investigate different strategies”.
