MY NUMBER 1 RECOMMENDATION TO CREATE FULL TIME INCOME ONLINE: CLICK HERE
Doucet previously held senior positions at banks including Credit Suisse and Citigroup, starting her investment banking career in Toronto before spending eight years at Nike, including as director of finance and strategy for the sportswear giant’s North American division. She later served as CEO of London-based NikeWomen for three years.
The FA have repeatedly stated that they have no intention of running the WSL in the long term, and their head of women’s football, Baroness Sue Campbell, revealed in 2022 that they intended to set up this standalone Newco in early 2023.
If officially appointed, Doucet would be the head of this new venture and would be tasked with attracting capital investment and driving increased commercial revenue to take the women’s game at club level in this country to new heights.
What will Doucet bring to the table?
The board’s unofficial intention was for ‘Newco’ to have an influential CEO who would fulfill a job description similar to that of the Men’s Premier League CEO, Richard Masters, to guide the future direction of the company running the WSL and the Championship.
Last summer, Telegraph Sport exclusively reported that – at a meeting in the final week of last summer’s Euros – the majority of WSL clubs had called The FA to speed up the process of appointing an independent CEO with “commercial experience”.
Clubs are keen to see the league increase its commercial potential and feel, particularly after the success of the Lionesses at the Euros, that there is room for an experienced global business executive to attract greater commercial revenue to the competition.
In that regard, someone with Doucet’s experience at the senior levels of sports business and her background in investment banking would tick a lot of boxes for the type of business-minded and commercially minded CEO that clubs crave.
The role comes at a crucial time for the future of the WSL as a slow transition of power from the FA to a private entity is expected over the next few years.
There will still be plenty of work to do for the incoming CEO, with approximately 15 months remaining on the WSL’s existing TV contract. The current domestic rights deal with the BBC and Sky Sports, worth between £7m and £8m per season, expires in 2024.
.
MY NUMBER 1 RECOMMENDATION TO CREATE FULL TIME INCOME ONLINE: CLICK HERE