PFA Camp Provides Purpose for Out-of-Contract WSL Players

Every July, the same pictures flood timelines. Squads back in, fitness tests, new kits, old friendships. For most professionals, it’s the reassuring rhythm of another season beginning.

For those still without a club, it can feel like the walls closing in.

“Every player I spoke to mentioned that moment,” said Victoria Williams, Head of Women’s Football at the Professional Footballers’ Association and former defender for Chelsea and Brighton & Hove Albion. “They’d had positive seasons or had come 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 limbo needed a proper home.

Across the weeks beginning 15 and 22 July, the union staged its first dedicated pre-season camp for out-of-contract players from the Women’s Super League and the now fully professional Women’s Super League 2. A simple idea, executed with intent: recreate a top-level club environment, keep players sharp, and give them space to make clear-headed decisions about their futures.

A camp built for professionals, not cast-offs

The timing of the camp is no accident. England’s women’s game has never been more competitive. Investment has risen, overseas talent keeps arriving, and the professionalisation of WSL2 ahead of the 2025/26 season has dragged standards – and expectations – higher.

With that shift came a structural change. The PFA extended membership across the top two tiers, opening its doors to more female professionals than ever, and crucially, to those between contracts.

“The intention has always been to run a women’s camp alongside the men’s,” Williams said. “Now that WSL2 is fully professional, we’re seeing more players who genuinely want to build a career in football. If they’re out of contract, especially in WSL2, dropping into tier three isn’t always straightforward because of the differences in professional conditions.

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

This was not a holding pen for the unwanted. The two-week programme mirrored the daily grind of a top club: football sessions on the grass, structured gym work, and access to the PFA’s wellbeing, personal development and business school teams. Physical shape, mental health, and life beyond the next contract all on the same schedule.

“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.

“If we can provide a pre-season environment that matches the standards they’d experience at a club, they don’t have to rush into a move simply because they feel they’re falling behind.”

For former Nottingham Forest striker Libby Smith, that distinction mattered. She walked into a set-up that felt familiar – and that steadied her.

“The facilities are top. Everything is professional. It’s all run very smoothly,” Smith said.

“It makes a massive difference. It keeps motivation high and helps you get through the sessions. Being here has kept my fitness high and allowed me to work on the individual things I wanted to improve.

“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.”

Belonging, when the contract says you don’t

Behind the conditioning drills and tactical work sits something more basic: the need to belong.

“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.

“It’s exactly what we hear from the men’s camps as well. 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’.”

The professionalisation of the women’s game has brought better wages and better standards, but also sharper edges. Gaps between contracts can be brutal. Bills don’t pause because a deal has lapsed. Nor does the fear that time is slipping away.

“There can be financial pressure, personal circumstances and the feeling that time is running out,” Williams said. “When teams start going back into pre-season and you still don’t know what’s next, it can be a very unsettling time. We want players to know they’re not on their own.”

That is why the camp set out to do more than run players through fitness blocks. It aimed to rebuild confidence stripped away by uncertainty.

“When you’re training on your own and you don’t know what the future holds, that takes a lot out of you,” Williams 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.”

From experiment to summer staple

For a first attempt, the returns were immediate. Players began receiving multiple offers before the camp had even wrapped up. The pitch did its job. So did the support staff.

Those who took the plunge have also shaped what comes next. Their feedback is already feeding into plans for next year: an earlier start date is on the table, as are friendly matches to mirror the men’s long-running programme and give scouts something tangible to watch.

“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.”

None of it happens without the first cohort, who walked into something untested and made it work.

“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.

“The players turned up, worked incredibly hard and got so much out of it. Hopefully, next year more players will look at this and think, ‘Maybe I should register too’.”

As the women’s game accelerates, careers will hinge on fine margins: one more pre-season, one more chance to stay sharp, one more room full of decision‑makers. This camp has given out-of-contract players a fighting chance to stay in that conversation.

The question now is not whether the PFA will run it again, but how many players will decide they can’t afford to sit out the next one.