WSL2 minimum pay for under-23s less than national living wage for typical full-time job | OneFootball

Players aged under 23 in Women’s Super League 2 are not guaranteed to be paid the equivalent of the national living wage for a typical full-time worker annually, despite a large pay increase for the division’s lowest-paid players after the introduction of minimum salaries this season.

WSL2 clubs must pay players aged 21 and 22 a minimum of £22,200 and those aged 18 to 20 at least £17,500. Regulations state they must receive a minimum “contact time” of 20 hours a week excluding matchdays and mealtimes. For players aged 23 and over, the minimum salary is £26,900.

Under UK law, any employee aged 21 or over must be paid at least £12.21 an hour, which equates to £23,810 a year based on a typical working week of 37.5 hours. An 18-year-old, on the national minimum wage of £10 an hour, should be paid £19,500 if working 37.5 hours a week. The real living wage of £13.45 an hour equates to £26,227 a year on a 37.5-hour week. In London the figure is £14.80 an hour.

Holly Murdoch, the chief operating officer of WSL Football, said when the minimum salaries were announced in September: “We wanted to make sure that they could focus on being a footballer, not focus on a part-time job.”

The minimum salaries are a marked enhancement on previous seasons, when for example Blackburn were reportedly paying some players £9,000 a year. The Lancashire club withdrew from the second tier before this season, saying the “demands placed on second-tier clubs have become unsustainable”.

It is understood many WSL2 clubs are comfortably exceeding the minimum salaries and that the vast majority of WSL2 players aged 18 to 20 are at least 15% above the floor level.

The minimum amounts were put in place after consultation with the Professional Footballers’ Association and have largely been welcomed as a step forward. Sources with knowledge of the discussions said a careful balancing act had to be struck to ensure long-term financial sustainability. A significant proportion of lower-paid WSL2 players were reliant on having second jobs before this season.

In the top tier, the minimum salaries for WSL players are higher: £42,500 for players aged 23 and over, £34,700 for 21- and 22-year-olds and £26,900 for 18- to 20-year-olds.

“This initial floor establishes a baseline and it’s a foundation we are fully committed to building upon,” a WSL spokesperson said. “There was no salary floor for players up until this season, and minimum salaries have been implemented as the result of an 18-month consultative process involving key stakeholders. The floor is higher than the minimum wage for an equivalent age, based on 20 hours per week.”

There are also salary-cap rules in place this season. These state that the player wage bill must not exceed the two following figures combined: 80% of the club’s revenue, plus up to £4m or a further 25% of the club’s revenue (whichever is higher). It means a cash-rich WSL2 owner can spend £4m of their money on player wages without breaching the cap.

For most clubs, £4m is substantially more than 25% of their revenue. Deloitte said only Arsenal (£22.2m) and Chelsea (£22m) among WSL clubs had revenue of more than £16m in the 2024-25 season, with Manchester City next on its list with £11.2m.

Any club found in breach of the cap could face a fine and points deduction, it can be revealed. A top-flight team can have a point deducted for every £100,000 of overspending, with a deduction of 10 points or more for an overspend of more than £900,000. In WSL2, one point can be deducted for every £50,000 of overspending.

On Tuesday, the company running the WSL and WSL2 published its first accounts since the leagues started being run independently of the Football Association. They show an operating loss of £8.2m between 24 April 2024 – when the company was incorporated – and 31 July 2025, much of which is attributed to the costs associated with building a new business, and is said to be “in line with the business plan”. The accounts showed a cash balance of £10.7m.

Revenue totalled £17.4m and has climbed this season, such that as of earlier this month, commercial revenue is understood to have trebled since the split from the FA.

The company drew down £6.1m from £20m loan from the Premier League, which will not start to be repaid until the 2030-31 season. A further £4.4m has been drawn this season, and the accounts reveal the Premier League will be repaid at an interest rate 2% above the Barclays Bank base rate at the time of the drawdown.

The highest-paid director, who is not named but is expected to be the chief executive, Nikki Doucet, was paid £531,000 including pension contributions. The directors and senior management team combined earned £1.37m.

Header image: [Photograph: Eddie Keogh/WSL/WSL Football/Getty Images]