Top women set for central contracts Guardian (UK) This article suggests the FA is restructuring the top-flight women's competition to avoid losing players to the U.S. and Australian leagues.
WPS should get organized and beat the FA to the punch. It'll be years before any of this stuff gets implemented (if it's implemented!), and we should be able to pick them clean before that.
Realistically, how many of those 35 WPS International spots would go English players anyway? Certainly not close to half, even if that is how many players were approached. All in all, a positive development for women's soccer, but the impact on WPS should be minimal. And competition is a good thing!
You are not talking only England's Nat team, but Ireland and Scotland Any WPS team would kill to have Fleeting, Byrnes, Smith, Williams, Unit, Yankee, Carney and a host of great talent.... Look at Arsenal Womens team for instance... I think that WPS is going to be hard pressed to get a full alotment, except from players that do not have Nat Team support during not competition years. Dont forget Europe has the Womens Euro Cup coming up and are gearing up for Qualifying so That will have an impact on who may come over... lesser talent may come.
Given that Emma Hayes, the Chicago coach, was at Arsenal, I'm not surprised that players in that league (well, that team) are getting looks. More will be revealed tomorrow, I assume.
The article says that the FA will pay the top English players 16,000 pounds ($32,000 dollars) a year, but it doesn't say anything about salary levels for others, like the Irish or Scottish players you mention. Those are the ones that may be the best candidates for WPS, since I can't imagine them being highly subsidized by the FA, and most English clubs have shown repeatedly ithat they won't invest in women's soccer. I think it boils down to where they'll have the best opportunity to improve their skills, and where they'll be paid more. Given the track record of English investment in women's soccer, I think the WPS will give them the better financial opportunity. And if they water down the 'super clubs', like Chelsea and Arsenal, by using allocation to make the overall league more competitive, you'd have to give a nod to WPS on having a higher level of competition. And to think WPS is going to be hard-pressed to get a full allotment is awfully negative (your general tone lately). There's a lot of talent in that group that doesn't get federation support in non-competition years. Shoot, they could get half of them from Canada alone, since residency appears to be gone after the Olympics (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Will they get all of the top foreign players? Of course not. Many have financial, personal, or competitive situations that they wouldn't want to leave. But the 'lesser' talents you refer to could be the next Marinette Pichon or Maribel Dominguez, who were a big success in WUSA but hardly a blip elsewhere. Great players, just relatively unknown.
