Everton sell women’s team in groundbreaking PSR move

Theo Athans07/08/2025 5:55 am07/08/2025

Image credit: Najmi Arif / Shutterstock.com

Everton have transferred ownership of Goodison Park to their women’s team in a strategic play designed to attract fresh investment and boost financial flexibility.

The deal sees Everton Women and the iconic stadium sold to a company controlled by club owner Dan Friedkin. Roundhouse Capital, the investment vehicle used by Friedkin to acquire Everton in December, is now listed as the owner of Everton Women Football Club Limited, according to documents filed with Companies House.

The transaction, which has been ratified by the Premier League as fair market value, will count as revenue in the men’s team’s accounts, helping the club remain within the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR). It also frees up financial headroom to support the club’s broader football operations.

Considering Everton’s recent struggles with PSR, including two separate point deductions in 2023/24, this is an intelligent business decision that is just within the rules.

Capacity at Goodison Park will initially be set at 20,000 for Women’s Super League matches, with potential for expansion. Renovations are already underway to ready the ground for the new season, which kicks off with a Merseyside derby at Anfield on 7 September.

While Roundhouse Capital intends to retain a majority share, the move is aimed at making Everton Women more appealing to external investors, particularly in the United States, where women’s football is experiencing rapid growth.

This follows a similar model to Chelsea, who earlier this year sold an 8% stake in their women’s team to Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, valuing the club at $491 million (£240m). Both teams are majority owned by American investors.

This marks the first full ownership transfer of its kind in the Premier League and could become a blueprint for other clubs looking to unlock financial value from their women’s teams.

Selling the women’s side creates a smart financial lever for clubs needing to meet PSR regulations or raise funds for transfer market activity.

As women’s football continues to grow commercially, this type of structure could soon become more common across the Premier League and across the other top European leagues.

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Football NSW supports Female Coaches CPD as Women’s Football Surges

Declan Chan15/04/2026 6:15 am14/04/2026

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Football NSW has used the platform of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup to deliver a targeted professional development workshop for female coaches, bringing together scholarship recipients for an evening of structured learning and direct engagement with elite women’s football.

Held at ACPE last month, the session was open to female coaches who received C or B Diploma scholarships through Football NSW in 2025. Coaching accreditation carries a financial cost that disproportionately affects women, who are less likely to have their development subsidised by clubs or associations operating in underfunded community football environments. Scholarship access changes that equation at the point where many women exit the pathway.

Facilitated by Football NSW Coach Development Coordinator Bronwyn Kiceec, the workshop focused on goal scoring trends from the tournament’s group stage, with coaches analysing attacking patterns and exploring how those insights could translate into their own environments. The group then attended the quarter-final between South Korea and Uzbekistan at Stadium Australia.

The structure of the evening mattered as much as its content. Female coaches in community football rarely have access to elite competition environments as a professional resource. The gap between the level at which most women coach and the level at which the game is analysed and discussed tends to reinforce itself. Placing scholarship recipients inside a major tournament, as participants rather than spectators, closes that gap in a way that a classroom session cannot.

Female coaches remain significantly underrepresented across all levels of the game in Australia. The pipeline that will change that depends not only on accreditation access but on the professional networks, peer relationships and exposure to elite environments that male coaches have historically taken for granted.

The workshop forms part of Football NSW’s ongoing commitment to developing female coaches through scholarships and structured learning opportunities.

Marie-Louise Eta makes history as new Union Berlin head coach

Patrick Irving15/04/2026 6:05 am14/04/2026

Image credit: FC Union Berlin

In an historic appointment, Eta will take over as head coach of Union Berlin until the end of the season.

History in the making

Previously the first female assistant coach in Bundesliga history with Union Berlin, Eta will now take the reigns of the men’s first team on an interim basis.

Currently, the club sit in 11th place in the Bundesliga table, but with only two wins so far in 2026, relegation appears an all-too-real prospect, and one which the club is desperate to avoid.

“Given the points gap in the lower half of the table, our place in the Bundesliga is not yet secure,” said Eta via official media release.

‘I am delighted that the club has entrusted me with this challenging task. One of Union’s strengths has always been, and remains, the ability to pull together in such situations.”

Eta will begin as Union’s new head coach with immediate effect, and will be in the dugout for the club’s matchup against Wolfsburg this weekend.

A step into an equal future

Eta’s appointment signals a major step towards a more level playing field in the football landscape.

Furthermore, Eta joins other coaches including Sabrinna Wittmann, Hannah Dingley and Corinne Diacre who, in recent years, have blazed a trail for female coaches to step into the men’s game.

Wittmann currently manages FC Ingolstadt in Germany’s third division, and was the first female head coach in Germany’s top three divisions.

In 2023, Dingley became caretaker manager of Forest Green Rovers, and thus the first woman to lead a men’s professional team in England.

Diacre, now head coach of France’s women’s national team, managed Ligue 2’s Clerment Foot between 2014 and 2017.

Final thoughts

The impact therefore, is that Eta’s appointment will show future generations of aspiring female coaches that men’s football is an equally viable and possible pathway as the women’s game.

The time is now to level the playing field.

And while it may be a short-term role, its effect on attitudes towards equality and fair opportunities in the game will hopefully resonate long after the season ends.