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

Every July, the same pictures roll across timelines. Squads back in, new kits, first-day testing, the ritual smiles of another pre-season. For players with no club to report to, those images hit very differently.

“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 had finished strong seasons or fought back from injury, yet as they watched teammates return to training, “that’s when their minds started racing.”

This summer, the PFA decided that limbo needed a 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 Women’s Super League 2. It was more than a holding pen. It was a fully built, elite environment designed to keep players sharp, supported and, crucially, in control of what comes next.

A camp that mirrors the professional game

The camp sits within a rapidly changing landscape. Investment in the women’s game in England has accelerated, the leagues have become a magnet for overseas talent and, ahead of the 2025/26 season, WSL2 has gone fully professional. That shift allowed the PFA to expand membership across the top two tiers, bringing more women than ever under its umbrella – including those suddenly without a badge on their training gear.

“The intention has always been to run a women’s camp alongside the men’s,” Williams said. Now, with both tiers professional, more players see football as a long-term career, not a short-term dream. Dropping down into tier three is no simple safety net; the gulf in professional conditions can be stark.

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

The PFA responded by recreating the rhythms of club life. Daily football sessions. Gym work. Structured schedules. Around that, the union wrapped its wider support network: wellbeing services, personal development advisers, the business school team. The message was clear. This is not a stopgap. This is a professional base.

Williams is keen to challenge the stigma around such camps. “I think people sometimes see these camps as somewhere players go because they haven’t got a club, but it’s not like that,” she said. The point is to give players a top-level environment so they can think clearly, not panic.

“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.”

‘Thank goodness I’ve got somewhere to go’

For former Nottingham Forest striker Libby Smith, that shift in mindset was immediate. She walked into a setting that felt familiar: serious facilities, serious standards.

“The facilities are top. Everything is professional. It’s all run very smoothly,” Smith said. It mattered. When contracts dry up, motivation can go with them. The camp fought that slide.

“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.”

The technical work is only half the story. What many players craved most was something more basic: routine, community, a reason to get in the car in the morning.

“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 relief mirrors what the PFA hears from the long-established men’s camps. The feeling is the same: “I’ve got a purpose and somewhere to go where I feel supported and I’ve got a bit of autonomy over my future.”

Pressure, uncertainty and the mental toll of limbo

Professionalisation has brought better contracts, better facilities and bigger stages. It has also sharpened the edges of uncertainty. When a deal ends now, the stakes feel higher.

“There can be financial pressure, personal circumstances and the feeling that time is running out,” Williams said. As clubs roll back into pre-season and social feeds fill with content from training grounds, the out-of-contract players wait. And wonder.

“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 PFA wanted to go beyond cones and rondos. Recreating the club environment is about identity as much as fitness.

“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. The camp aimed to flip that narrative. “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.”

The impact was tangible. Players arrived with questions about their futures; some left with offers on the table before the final session had finished.

From experiment to fixture

For a first attempt, the returns were strong. Multiple players received approaches during the camp, underlining its value not just as a training base but as a launchpad back into the professional game.

The PFA is already planning the sequel. Feedback from this inaugural group is feeding straight into next summer’s blueprint. An earlier start is on the table. So are friendly matches, which would bring the women’s programme closer to the men’s long-running model and give players the one thing no training drill can fully replicate: match rhythm.

“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.”

If that happens, it will be built on the shoulders of those who turned up this year without knowing exactly what they were walking into.

“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.”

They also changed the picture of what an off-season can look like for a player without a contract. Next summer, when the pre-season photos start flooding in again, more of those scrolling at home may well look at the PFA camp and think, with a very different kind of urgency: “Maybe I should register too.”