Top women's leagues to split from English FA

The Women's Super League and the second-tier Championship are preparing to break away from the English Football Association after agreeing to form a club-owned organisation to run the women's professional game in England.

Former Nike and Citigroup executive Nikki Doucet has been appointed to lead the organisation, NewCo, and will oversee plans for all 24 clubs to move into the new governance structure ahead of the 2024/25 season.

Each club that participates in the WSL and Championship will act as shareholders under the new model.

Women's football is aiming to exploit an explosion of interest, with WSL chair Dawn Aire saying the aim is to make the topflight the first billion-pound women's league in the world over the next decade.

Sue Campbell, the FA's director of women's football, said: "The women's professional game is in the strongest place that it has ever been thanks to the hard work of everybody involved in its development so far, but we firmly believe that the NewCo will take it to another level entirely.

"Each of our 24 clubs and the league itself wants the Barclays Women's Super League and Barclays Women's Championship to be setting the standards for women's football around the world, and this venture into a new governing body is the next step in us achieving that ambition."