London City Lionesses head to WSL with ambition to compete among the elite

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For all of Michele Kang’s influence in global women’s soccer and the high-stakes games she’s jet-setted across the Atlantic Ocean to watch, the investor is still susceptible to the same agonizing emotional rollercoaster that comes with watching a crucial match featuring a team in which she has heightened investment.

Such was the case on May 4, when Kang’s London City Lionesses endured just over 10 minutes of stomach-churning stoppage time to hold their tie against Birmingham City in the grand finale of the Women’s Championship season, which saw both teams fighting for promotion. The Lionesses needed a win or a draw to reach the top-tier Women’s Super League (WSL) next year — a fact which was abundantly clear to Kang, who acquired the Lionesses in December 2023. But when the first whistle blew and the game started, “I totally forgot,” Kang told The Athletic. “I’m like, ‘OK, we have to win.’”

And they were, for the first 63 minutes. But then Birmingham City leveled it to 2-2 just before the end of regulation, and Kang eschewed logic and slid into an ice-cold bath of emotion. She worried about the mental state of the Lionesses’ under such tense circumstances, but had to “behave” in the stands, fully aware her movements could be captured by cameras. The magnitude of the moment was encapsulated in the fact that it was broadcast on the UK’s leading sports broadcaster, Sky Sports, a first for a game at that level.

In the final minutes of added time, Kang’s mind went blank. But when the final whistle blew and the Lionesses’ promotion was sealed, “it was all worth it,” she recalled.

A first-time promotion will always be a momentous occasion, no matter the team or tier. But that the London City Lionesses have accomplished this feat after just six years in existence, and even more crucially as a fully independent club, carries a precedent-setting prestige that is already reverberating across the landscape of global women’s football; a women’s team can achieve success outside the institutional umbrella of a male-centric club, and just might be able to do so faster that way.

It’s a theory Kang has been bullish about since she made her foray into the cosmos of women’s soccer, first with her purchase of the Washington Spirit in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) for $35million ($26.4m) in March 2022, then with the Lionesses for an undisclosed price, and most recently closed a deal on French side Lyon Féminin in August 2024 for $54m. Now, all three teams she owns will compete in the top flight of their respective leagues — and where the Lionesses are concerned, the work has just begun.

Kang celebrates with the Barclays Women’s Championship trophy (Matt Lewis – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)

For Kang, one objective remains clear: “The last thing we want to do is to copy what men’s football has done.”

But this wasn’t a concept Kang pursued purely for its theoretical strength. Her majority ownership of Lyon Féminin was a lengthy yet informative process.

“It took probably almost 10 months to get that done, and it’s still very hard,” she said, partly because it had never been done in Europe. “All the rules and regulations are written as if everyone is gonna have the same ownership between (the) men and women’s teams.”

As she underwent that transaction, Kang was already thinking ahead. She knew she wanted a team in England, but this time she asked herself whether she wanted to repeat the same exercise of prying a women’s team from the behemoth of a larger club. She likened the dynamic to a marriage, where “the names are common and you have a shared legacy, shared names, shared brands.”

Or did she want to try something different? Could she, in those same 10 months, purchase an independent club at a lower division and invest in the goal of earning promotion?

The proposition hit that sweet spot of being novel and just feasible enough to pique the interests of individuals who became key pieces to the London City Lionesses’ success. On the sporting side, signing a star veteran in Swedish attacking midfielder Kosovare Asllani and hiring ex-Paris Saint-Germain manager Jocelyn Prêcheur last June generated the kind of reaction that showed just how serious the London side aimed to be. They joined director of football Ronald Thompson, who joined from Brighton & Hove Albion in 2023 as the women’s recruitment lead, and had held various positions in the Football Association (FA) for two decades before that.

The Lionesses’ prospects — for success and entertainment, frankly — surged even higher when 2011 World Cup champion and club-decorated Japanese defender Saki Kumagai signed in January. By then, former San Diego Wave player Sofia Jakobsson had already joined, and all of a sudden the squad was rounded out with international talent to enhance the homegrown gifts of players like Isobel Goodwin and Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah, the two strikers behind the goals that helped lift the Lionesses to promotional glory in their final match.

No sooner had the team posed for its last photo hoisting the Championship trophy into the air past had become prologue, Kang explained. Winning that league was challenging enough, and she cited teams like Durham and Newcastle United that had also made significant investments in their women’s sides and were seeing the returns on the pitch.

That’s why, the day after the big game, London City staff met at nine in the morning to review its roster and start planning for its next challenge: the WSL, and specifically, avoiding the same fate that has claimed recently-promoted teams that came before them.

“We have in mind what happened in the last two seasons with the promoted team,” Prêcheur told the Guardian, referring to Crystal Palace, who recorded just two wins and 10 points in the WSL this season, half the points of second-to-last-place Tottenham Hotspur (and third-from-bottom Leicester City), and will return to the Championship having just earned promotion. In the 2023-24 campaign, Bristol City accrued just six points and were also relegated after their promotion; they finished sixth in the Championship this season.

“We don’t want to have the same story, which means we need to be sure we are strong enough, and it will be tough,” Prêcheur said to the Guardian.

As is traditionally the case, both for the Lionesses and women’s football at large, new signings or transfers won’t be expected until the summer. But already, Kang is not demure about her goals.

Realistically, they’re aiming for the middle of the WSL table next season, but still, she says, “I want this team to be the best team in one of the best leagues in the world, and we want to get up there to be able to play toe to toe against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, all the WSL teams.”

She spoke of WSL champions Chelsea, who went undefeated through all 22 games this year, specifically with equal hints of admiration and intrigue.

“They were unbeaten, right?” she asked rhetorically. “So, I want to have a shot to break that record.”

Additional reporting: Meg Linehan

(Top photo: Molly Darlington / The FA via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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