A week after committing to join the WPSL in 2024, The Town FC announced they will join the Women’s Premiere Soccer League’s new professional division set to start in 2025.
“We are thrilled for the ability to now launch a professional women’s team in the WPSL PRO,” said Benno Nagel, Chair of The Town FC.
This new league represents so much for the women’s soccer community and furthers the ability for young girls to dream and aspire to professional soccer and to see that pathway with us at The Town FC,” added Gina Woodward, The Town FC Head of Women’s Soccer.
New Pro league will debut in 2025
WPSL is the world’s largest amateur women’s league and is a proving ground for young talent in the USA. The league’s new professional division will apply to the United States Soccer Federation to be sanctioned as a third-division professional soccer league. The Town FC would be one of ten inaugural teams in the league, hoping to grow to twenty-four by 2030.
“We have been in such awe and admiration for the continued growth of the women’s game in America and feel that our launch of a pro league at the DIII level can achieve massive success for the sport and for all the women and young girls who play and enjoy the world’s beautiful game,” noted WPSL president Sean Jones.
Exciting time for women’s soccer in the SF Bay Area
Two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that an investment group known as NWSL to the Bay had been awarded a franchise in the National Women’s Soccer League for a 50 million dollar expansion fee to play in San Jose. The NWSL currently has twelve teams.
Also, eight NorCal women’s teams are slated to begin to play in the amateur USL Women’s League this summer. Teams include Oakland Soul, the SF Glens, the Olympic Club, and California Storm. The Oakland Soul has also expressed interest in joining a new USL professional women’s soccer league that reportedly will petition US Soccer to be a second-division league in the American soccer pyramid.
Last year, The Town FC announced its intentions to bring a women’s and men’s professional soccer team to Oakland. The Town FC’s co-founder, Benno Nagel, was also the co-founder of another recent local soccer startup: the Oakland Roots.
In November, The Town FC and the African American Sports Entertainment Group (AASEG) announced a “strategic alliance” to explore eventually bringing an NWSL team to Oakland that they hope would eventually play at the redeveloped Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum complex.
“This [WPSL PRO] is a league project that is poised to grow exponentially when you look at the overwhelming number of groups who have expressed interest in NWSL but are still a bit away from achieving that level, groups like The Town FC,” explained Nagel. “We can also all respect the tussle that USL and NWSL will endure over the top level of women’s pro soccer and feel that there will be a number of NWSL hopeful groups who will opt for the WPSL PRO as a better-aligned ecosystem to incubate in. With a number of NWSL and MLS clubs already fielding teams in the WPSL, we’re excited to see what WPSL PRO can achieve in the next 18 months and look forward to building The Town FC women’s program as a part of this new effort.”
