Burnley Football Club – The women’s side who are ‘doing it the right way’.

Photo: Burnley FC Women

Burnley Football Club have recently made the decision to make their women’s side full time, despite being two leagues below the Women’s Super League.

Despite Burnley men’s team being promoted to the Premier League this season, their women’s have missed out on promotion and will remain in the FA Women’s National League North.

The claret’s finished fourth in the table, 12 points behind the promoted Nottingham Forest. However, their chairman Alan Pace has still decided to take the team full time in the 2025-6 season.

Facilities

As part of Burnley’s Keeping the Faith YouTube series, episode 7 explored the women’s side, with interviews with chairman Alan Pace, head of women’s football Lola Ogunbote and players Emma Doyle and Naomi Hartley.

As part of the view into how the club approaches the women’s team, it was shown how integrated the men’s and the women’s sides are.

Ogunbote shared that Burnley Women’s use ‘the same analysis room, dine and eat in the same spaces, use the same gyms, and share the same resources, the same knowledge’ as the men’s.’

The club views this sharing of resources as the key to the women’s success and so support them with the same passion and care as their men’s side.

The idea of this is fore fronted by Burnley’s American chairman Alan Pace, whose passion for supporting the women’s game partly stems from his own three daughters.

‘We see both the men's team and the women's team and the development pathways that are below that as being super important for now and for forever forward,’ Pace states.

Ambitions

As is known across women’s football, it is hugely beneficial to a team to support their players as full-time professionals.

This leads to better results as footballers are no longer tired from work or financial stresses and can focus their physical and mental efforts completely on the game. Therefore, this decision could completely revolutionise Burnley’s success in the league.

Central Midfielder Emma Doyle reiterates this in saying that 'going full time would be a massive thing for the club and for the women's team, because it's our sole focus then on getting promoted and being the best we can be'.

Doyle joined the club in 2024 after finishing her contract for Burnley rivals Blackburn Rovers. She states that at Burnley ‘the women’s team project is something that aligns with my ambitions and it’s an exciting place to be at the moment.’

Naomi Hartley, the Burnley defender, says that the club aspires to reach the Women’s Championship (now called WSL2), and eventually the Women’s Super League.

Unlike teams like Chelsea, Burnley doesn’t have the funding to buy world class players, so instead focuses on development, support and teamwork to achieve success. Hartley herself came up through the youth ranks of Burnley as her hometown club.

Photo: Burnley FC Women

Going Full-time

In 2021 Burnley announced the integration of Burnley Women into their club with the view of turning it into a full-time, professional side within four years.

This plan came with the aforementioned access to shared facilities with the men and took the women’s side on a journey from non-professional to hybrid, to part-time and eventually to a full-time professional squad.

Pace believes that ‘it's important to go full time, to put the resources behind it and to make sure we're giving the opportunities to those involved to progress to the next level'.

With a view to the WSL2, the club hopes that this move will increase success for the team and allow them to improve their skills and gameplay with the ability to focus more entirely on the pitch.

Following the Footsteps

With the recent disappointment of Wolverhampton not applying for promotion to the Women’s Championship plastering the news, it is more important than ever for clubs to support their women’s sides to succeed.

Unlike Wolves, there have been many clubs who have supported their women’s team over the past season and have received great success from doing so.

In the same league as Burnley and Wolverhampton, Nottingham Forest were supported to turn their women’s team full-time over the past 2024-5 season.

Consequently, Notts Forest won the FA Women’s National League Northern Division with 58 points, not only winning the title, but securing them a position in the WSL2 next season.

Newcastle United also chose to make their women’s team full-time professional for the 2023-4 season after they secured a place in the FA Women’s National League.

At the time this made them the first side in the Northern or Southern divisions of this league to go full-time, but the tactic paid off as they secured promotion to the Women’s Championship after only one season.

Burnley’s decision to make their women’s team full-time shows a level of dedication from the club which should be an example to other women’s sides across the country.

If they manage to follow the past examples of Nottingham Forest and Newcastle United, the team is sure to gain success in the upcoming season and may even achieve their goal of promotion.