PFA Launches Pre-Season Camp for Out-of-Contract WSL Players

Every July, the same pictures flood timelines. Squads jogging back out onto pristine grass. Laughter in the gym. New signings in new kits. The quiet signal that another season is coming.

For players still without a club, those images don’t just mark the start of pre-season. They mark the start of doubt.

“Every player I spoke to mentioned that moment,” said Victoria Williams, Head of Women’s Football at the Professional Footballers’ Association and a former defender with Chelsea and Brighton & Hove Albion. They’d put in strong seasons, some had fought back from injury, “but then they started seeing players returning to clubs and that’s when their minds started racing.”

This summer, the PFA decided that period of limbo needed a proper answer.

They launched their first dedicated pre-season training camp for out-of-contract Women’s Super League and Women’s Super League 2 players, a two-week programme designed to look and feel exactly like a professional club environment. It ran across the weeks beginning 15 and 22 July, and for many of those who walked through the doors, it arrived just in time.

A camp born from a changing game

The camp is not some bolt-on gesture. It’s a direct response to how quickly the women’s game in England is changing.

Investment is rising. Overseas players are arriving. Competition for contracts is sharper than ever. With WSL2 becoming fully professional ahead of the 2025/26 season, the PFA widened its membership to cover both top tiers, opening up its support to more women than at any point in its history.

“The intention has always been to run a women’s camp alongside the men’s,” Williams said. Now that WSL2 is fully professional, she added, more players are determined to build a long-term career in the game. When contracts end, the next step is rarely simple.

Dropping into tier three is not just a step down in level. It often means a completely different reality: part-time training, reduced resources, a clash with work or education. For some, it simply isn’t viable.

“As the game continues to grow, the need for this type of support is only going to increase,” Williams said.

So the PFA set about recreating, as closely as possible, what those players were missing.

Elite standards, and something more important

On the surface, the camp looked like a standard pre-season. Daily football sessions. Gym work. Structured schedules. Professional facilities.

Underneath, it was built to be more than a place to stay fit.

Alongside the on-pitch work, players tapped into the PFA’s wellbeing, personal development and business school teams. The idea was simple: support them as footballers, but also as people trying to navigate one of the most vulnerable moments of their careers.

“I think people sometimes see these camps as somewhere players go because they haven’t got a club, but it’s not like that,” Williams said. “They’re there so players can train in an elite environment while having the time and space to make the best decision for themselves.”

The pressure to grab the first offer can be suffocating. A player without a club in July feels every social media post like a ticking clock. If the camp could match club standards, Williams argued, those players would no longer feel forced into a rushed move just to keep up.

Former Nottingham Forest striker Libby Smith felt the difference immediately.

“The facilities are top. Everything is professional. It’s all run very smoothly,” she said. “It makes a massive difference. It keeps motivation high and helps you get through the sessions.”

With her future still to be decided, Smith used the camp to sharpen her game rather than simply cling to fitness.

“Being here has kept my fitness high and allowed me to work on the individual things I wanted to improve,” she said. “The coaches have been brilliant, asking if there's anything specific I wanted help with. It will help me hit the ground running when I join a new club.”

Purpose, routine and a place to belong

For many, the biggest lift wasn’t tactical or physical. It was psychological.

“There is that moment in summer where they think, ‘Thank goodness I've got somewhere to get in the car and go to and be around players’,” Williams said.

That daily act – getting up, packing your boots, heading to training – carries weight. It restores rhythm. It gives shape to days that might otherwise be filled with anxiety and endless refreshing of a phone.

“It’s exactly what we hear from the men’s camps as well,” Williams added. “It’s a genuine feeling of, ‘I've got a purpose and somewhere to go where I feel supported and I’ve got a bit of autonomy over my future’.”

As women’s football professionalises, the stakes around contract gaps only rise. There is the financial strain. The pull of personal circumstances. The creeping fear that opportunities are slipping away while others report back to pre-season.

“When teams start going back into pre-season and you still don’t know what’s next, it can be a very unsettling time,” Williams said. “We want players to know they’re not on their own.”

Recreating the club environment, for her, is not a cosmetic exercise. It’s a way to restore belief.

“When you’re training on your own and you don’t know what the future holds, that takes a lot out of you,” she said. “If we can recreate that club environment, remind players what they’re capable of and help them walk away confident in their ability and knowing people believe in them, then that’s a huge success.”

Early results, and a statement of intent

The impact was tangible before the final whistle on the first year.

Several players received multiple offers while the camp was still running. For a project in its debut summer, those outcomes matter. They show clubs are watching. They show the level is right.

Feedback from the group is already shaping what comes next. There is talk of starting earlier in the off-season. Of adding friendly matches to mirror the long-established men’s programme. Of making the women’s camp not a one-off experiment, but a fixture.

“We want this to become a staple of the summer calendar,” Williams said. “Provided players want it, we’ll always put it on. We’ve learned a huge amount from this first year and now it’s about making next year’s camp even bigger and better.”

The players who took the first step have, in many ways, done the hardest part.

“I really credit the bravery of the players who attended,” Williams said. “They didn't know what this was going to look like. There wasn’t a previous camp they could look at and there were no women who had done it before.”

They turned up. They trained. They asked questions about their futures rather than accepting whatever came along.

“The players turned up, worked incredibly hard and got so much out of it,” Williams said.

Next summer, the same social media pictures will roll around. Squads back in. New signings unveiled. The familiar rhythm of pre-season.

The difference now? Out-of-contract WSL and WSL2 players know there is somewhere else they can report back to – a camp built for them, and a chance to decide, on their own terms, where their careers go next.