It’s already been a seismic couple of weeks for the National Women’s Soccer League, from the announcement of a landmark deal with players that abolished the draft system, to Thursday’s record-breaking $250m sale of Angel City. But the league clearly does not intend to rest on its laurels.
On Friday, two new recruits to the NWSL’s leadership team were unveiled: Sarah Gregorius, the former women’s football lead at the world players’ union, Fifpro, joins as senior director, sporting, while Karla Thompson, the former San Diego Wave executive director of performance and development, becomes the league’s new director of youth development. Both roles are designed to continue to raise standards for players around welfare and provisions, and to develop more homegrown stars, as the league enters a new era without a college draft.
Gregorius, a former forward who won 100 caps for New Zealand, was an English league champion with Liverpool in 2013 at a time when she says the sport was almost “unrecognisable” compared with how it looks today. She describes herself in her playing days as a “troublemaker” because she constantly asked questions about provisions for players. Now, the prospect of finding ways to improve the NWSL further for the players clearly excites her even more than her abundant enthusiasm for the prospect of relocating to New York City.
Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, she says the NWSL’s potential isn’t even clear yet.
“Yes, the NWSL is leading in a lot of areas, but I don’t get the impression they want to sleep on that,” she says. “My impression is, they don’t feel like they’re at the top of the mountain yet. They feel like they’re very much still trying to scale it.
“What I like about women’s football is leagues want to improve with each other. [All women’s leagues around the world] have this idea of swimming in the same direction to improve women’s football. I think the NWSL wants to play a role in assisting those other leagues and also learning from those other leagues. There is a lot to be gained from being part of that global community. We do it better in women’s football than I’ve seen in men’s football, so there’ll be a lot of learning in the future.
“The NWSL exists for a singular purpose, which is to develop women’s football professionally as a league in the US, but I do think it can do things that maybe even the league itself hasn’t thought of yet, or that I haven’t thought of. I’m sure those opportunities will manifest because you’ve got a focused group of people.”
Gregorius’s role will lean on her union background, working closely with clubs and the NWSL Players Association on issues such as welfare. Discussing what she hopes to achieve in the role, she adds: “I don’t pretend to know everything that needs to happen in order for the league to achieve what it wants to achieve. I’ll spend a lot of time learning, in the beginning, and understanding where my expertise and experiences can help. I do think the NWSL is uniquely placed to do things that are maybe a bit out of reach for other leagues at the moment, so I’m interested to see how they can not only set minimum standards but also continue to raise things from the bottom up.
“Clubs are moving at different speeds and the investment is there but it doesn’t always go into the most uniform of areas, and I’m looking forward to making sure investment is going into the most meaningful areas. I come in with a huge bias and I think the most meaningful area is players.”
Her appointment comes half a month on from the NWSL’s historic new collective bargaining agreement, which lasts through to 2030. The CBA brought an end to the practice of clubs holding the ‘rights’ to players without signing them and now gives players a say in transfers rather than teams being able to trade them without their consent. Gregorius says that, while she was not directly part of those negotiations, she is thrilled by the “world-leading” deal.
“I worked a lot with the NWSL Players Association when I was at Fifpro so I knew how the conversations were going,” she says. “I’m so pleased with where they got to in the negotiations. I’m pleased for both sides, the players and the league. I fully agree with where they’ve arrived, I’m thrilled. It’s so innovative, it’s world-leading. The NWSL is uniquely placed to take some of those decisions, whereas some other leagues around the world may not have the self-determination that the NWSL has for itself already.”
The 37-year-old’s playing career gave her experience of leagues in England, Germany and Japan, as well as New Zealand, and 11 years ago she was part of the Liverpool team that won the WSL title. On that success, she reflects: “When was I there, 2013? It feels about 50 years ago, when you think of the development. When I played football it was almost unrecognisable to where the game is now.
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“Whenever footballers do those articles where they write to their younger self, [I would say], it’s: ‘You will not believe where it goes in the next 10, 15, 20 years.’ [At Liverpool] we were in the boys’ [training ground] facility and we had shared housing. Without even talking about the salaries, it’s come on leaps and bounds. There’s still a hell of a lot of work to do [but] World Cups and competitions now are light years ahead of where they were back then.”
Gregorius played a key part in those changes to the World Cup during her time at Fifpro: a deal was reached to ensure players from every competing nation received at least $30,000 in prize money and that players had the same conditions as their male counterparts. Reflecting on her time at Fifpro, which also included progress on maternity provisions around the world, she says: “When I started at Fifpro as a policy officer, my reflection was: ‘This organisation could be really useful for players, but just not enough women’s players know about it.’ Things like the achievements around World Cup prize money and standards are a result of having a better connection with players.
“When they [NWSL] approached me with this opportunity, I wasn’t unhappy at Fifpro, I loved my job, I was very passionate about that work – now I get to do something that is quite different but also feels a little similar. This is a league that has players at the centre of what it does. It feels like a good fit.”
She shows her sense of humour when she jokes that “no kid grows up dreaming of working in football governance”. But she admits she enjoys its “strange world”. She starts work at the NWSL next week. The teams, fans and players will all be curious to see what further changes she can oversee.