Manchester City boss Gareth Taylor said promotion and relegation are what supporters and teams “crave” following reports relegation in the Women’s Super League could be abolished.
The Guardian reported the WSL, which is run by Women’s Professional Leagues Ltd, is considering scrapping relegation as part of a proposal to grow the sport.
It reports one area being discussed by clubs in the top two women’s leagues is an expansion of the WSL and Championship, which would see initially no relegation from the top flight, and adds an idea to maintain promotion from the Championship is set to be considered, meaning the WSL would expand.
The PA news agency understands several different routes are being explored in relation to league expansion and competition structure.
The current system sees the bottom WSL side relegated and the winners of the Championship go up.
City head coach Taylor said: “I’ve always had this thing of potentially making the league bigger, more teams, 14 teams or 16 teams would change a lot, create more competition in it.
“On first visual of looking at that piece this morning around no relegation, I can completely understand the reasons why, because it allows stability a little bit for those clubs to invest and create more competition.
“But I think that’s always kind of tough when you’re playing in the league below knowing that realistically you’re never going to have an opportunity to come up because it’s ringfenced.
“I need to have a look at it a little bit more. It’s good the relevant people are discussing this and having conversations around how we can improve the product and make it more competitive at both ends.
“I can see all the reasons why they are suggesting it and trying to create stability within teams. If you look at Reading as an example, in my time, certainly the first couple of seasons in the WSL falling away and have now fallen out of the Championship.
“There’s positives and negatives to both things. I think promotion and relegation are always going to be what supporters and teams play for and crave. I think that’s going to be really difficult to move away from that.”
Tottenham manager Robert Vilahamn echoed Taylor’s sentiments.
He said: “I haven’t read all the articles but if I start by actually bringing more teams to this league I’m a big fan of that. I think 12 teams is too few.
“I’m a very big fan to add more teams to the league as long as the clubs actually invest in those teams, make sure they want to invest in women’s football.
“I definitely want to have a relegation battle because I think you need the competition up in the table and down in the table. If it’s for one or two years to make sure we can have a big investment in those teams, show me the case and what they think about it then we can listen.
“I’m a big fan of the relegation battle as well. I think fans want to see games where you compete up and down in the leagues. I’m a big fan of more teams and having competition for relegation.”
