The first ever women's football league for companies

Years in the making

Some ideas take months to get off the ground. The women's league took years. It launched as the first ever women's football league for companies, a competition built specifically for women in London workplaces, rather than a mixed league with a few women in it.

Season one ran through autumn 2024: six teams, VCCP, Ogilvy UK, Savills, Squire Patton Boggs, Dewynters and OMD UK, over five Wednesday nights in Shoreditch, with a highlights film every week. It went to the final night, when VCCP came from behind to draw with Squire Patton Boggs and clinch the title. But the story of the season wasn't really the winners.

A space for women who'd never played, and women who never stopped

The brief was deliberately wide: a space for women who have never played football before, alongside those who play regularly, and those who haven't played since school. Getting that mix right is harder than it sounds, most leagues quietly sort themselves into one ability level and lose everyone else.

The clearest measure of whether it worked came from how far people were willing to travel for it. Savills had players commuting in from across the country just to make a Wednesday night. Their captain, Jade Barrett, made the trip from Cambridge every week. Others came from as far as Manchester and Reading.

Nobody travels three hours for a kickabout. They travel because the thing at the other end is worth it.

Season two, and the year ahead

Women's football has spent the last few years pulling in crowds, broadcast deals and sponsorship that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, and the effect at grassroots and workplace level is real. More women want a regular fixture, and more companies want to offer one.

We want to bring the Secta Women's League back for season two, with the same approach: all abilities genuinely welcome, properly refereed, filmed throughout. Companies that register interest now will hear first when dates are set.