We also look at the draw for the CONCACAF W Champions tournament for national teams and at the Afghanistan Refugee WNT that FIFA started and will play in a friendly tournament this month in UAE against the home side, Chad and Libya.
English Women’s Coaching Pioneer Matt Beard passes
The women’s football world received devastating news on September 20 that Matt Beard had passed at the age of 47. I know I was quite saddened with the news. Beard had managed multiple women’s teams, including Millwall Lionesses, Chelsea, West Ham United—taking the team to the FA Cup Final in his first season in 2018-19 (a 3-0 loss to Manchester City)—Bristol City (as interim head coach) and Burnley for two months this year, resigning in August, and was linked with the Leicester City women’s team job in WSL1. Beard won two WSL titles with Liverpool in 2013 and 2014.
He then had a second stint with Pool and won the Championship title and promotion back to the WSL1 in 2021. He coached Chelsea from 2009-2011 before leaving for Liverpool. Emma Hayes took over for him at Chelsea and is now the U.S. WNT head coach and said on Instagram about Beard: “Can’t quite compute this. One of the best humans. Always available for a chat, one of the good guys. A champion in the women’s game and a top bloke.” She added in a statement through the League Managers Association, that Beard’s passing leaves a “huge void in the women’s game.”
After coaching summer camps in Minnesota earlier in his career, he joined the Boston Breakers for the 2016 season, coaching there for two seasons. I had numerous interactions in person and over the phone with him during his time in the NWSL; I always found him always willing to talk intelligently about the game and was always cordial.
One of the first interviews I ever did for TribalFootball.com over a decade ago was with American-born Portuguese international midfielder Amanda DaCosta, who had written regular columns for this website when she played for Beard at Liverpool. She later joined him with the Breakers for his last season and then retired from the game to go to graduate school in counseling. She emphasized multiple times to me that Matt Beard was such a good head coach and she learned a lot from him. The women’s game is poorer without Matt Beard and we pass on our condolences to his family, friends and former players.
European men’s stars Juan Mata and Giorgio Chiellini invest in second-tier Bristol City, as part of a focus on building women’s only clubs in multiple countries
Mercury13, a multi-club women’s only model investment group, has added Bristol City Women of WSL2 to its multi-club portfolio by purchasing a “significant” majority stake from Steve Lansdown, whose Bristol Sport Group (BSG) has owned Bristol City Women since 2014. BSG will retain control of the men’s team (currently in the English Football Championship or second tier), as well as rugby union’s Bristol Bears and basketball’s Bristol Flyers.
Mercury13 owners include Juan Mata (37), the former Chelsea and Manchester United midfielder who won the World Cup with Spain in 2010 and is now with Melbourne Victory after a season with Western Sydney Wanderers (he also played for clubs in Spain, Turkey and Japan) along with central defender Giorgio Chiellini (41), who played for years with Juventus—winning nine Serie A titles, and a Serie B title during their forced relegation period—won the 2020 European Championship with Italy and finished his career with LA FC in the North American Major League Soccer, winning the league title in 2024 after finishing runner-up in 2023.
Mercury13’s plan is to invest $100 million in women’s football clubs. Mercury13 was founded by Victoire Cogevina Reynal, an American/Argentinian. In January 2015, she founded SR ALL Stars, a U.S.-based football agency representing elite Latin American professional players in MLS, which was one of the few sport agencies led only by women at the time. In 2023, she announced the formation of the Mercury 13 trust; a multi-club ownership group focused on acquiring controlling stakes in professional women's football teams in Europe and Latin America.
The women’s team will retain Bristol City’s branding and continue to play at Ashton Gate. They were a WSL founding member in 2011 and although they were relegated from the top flight in 2023-24, their average attendance for that campaign (6,974) was the fifth-highest in the division. Mercury13 had looked at acquiring Lewes (in their second season in the Women’s National League South or third tier after six seasons in the Championship second tier—now WSL2) in 2023 but talks ended with the team seemingly too tied together with their men’s team.
The new ownership group wants to achieve immediate promotion this season, as two clubs will be promoted to WSL1 as it expands to 14 teams for 2026-27. Other Mercury13 investors include Eni Aluko (38) (a 105-cap former England international)—who is now on the Board of Como (see below) and worked in the front office of Angel City FC in 2021 and 2022—and Sérgio Oliveira (33), a Portugal international midfielder who is currently with Sport Recife in Brazil and has played for clubs in Portugal, Italy, France, Greece and Turkey.
Mercury13 believes that their deal with Bristol City will provide a blueprint for how to separate a women’s team from a men’s club, which was a very complicated process, according to Hannah Haynes, their Chief Strategy Officer who led the effort for this acquisition: “It was 16 months from the first meeting to completion. It’s an incredibly proud moment. It really is a full-service deal that touched upon every single side of a sports business from IP to employment to data to real estate to corporate structure; a monumental amount of work was required to carve out not just the women’s team from a men’s integrated club, but also it sitting underneath a multi-asset group in itself being Bristol Sport. It is the first of its kind, I think, anywhere.”
Mercury13 bought the women’s team of the Italian club, Como, in March 2024. Swiss international and social media superstar Alisha Lehmann is Como’s most high-profile signing during the summer (see: The Week in Women's Football: Liga MX Review P2; Campos joins Tottenham - TribalFootball.com).
Cogevina Reynal (34) says. “I don’t think a lot of people would expect me to own a football club. We don’t invest in other sports; we don’t invest on the men’s side of the sport. It all starts with the premise that women’s teams are completely under-resourced, by every single metric that you can measure, and (we’re) going to give them a much better chance to succeed.”
She added: “The focus right now is very much on performance on the pitch. In a moment where there’s peak interest in investing in this country, we’re showing the way on how to do it (a deal like this), which will then allow hopefully hundreds of millions of pounds to flow into the game at the moment that it most needs it.”
Korean-American Michele Kang, who owns the Washington Spirit, OL Lyonnes in France and London City in the WSL, is the most visible owner focused on acquiring multiple women’s football team, but others are seeing women’s football as an investment, rather than a tax-write off for something they should do to show their social awareness. Alex Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit and an original member of Angel City FC, bought a minority stake in Chelsea Women for a reported US$27 million and West Ham United were in discussions earlier this year with a U.S. private equity firm to buy into the Women’s side.
This column will continue to track this vibrant trend in the women’s game, with the aspect of spinning women’s football clubs out of men’s organizations groundbreaking, as it takes away the problems that we have seen in England this year and for decades before, where the budgets for the women’s side is at the whim of the larger organization, including men’s side, academies and real estate, and can fluctuate wildly season-to-season. It is good to track this phenomena from the beginning as, on the men’s side, it is quite complicated, including large global organizations such as Red Bull and City Football Group.
We also wonder if we will see investments from Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatari investment firms in women’s football. That might not be imminent, but particularly Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in the game domestically with the national team and particularly for their Premier Women’s League, which is continuing to track stars from abroad. We will look at the 2025-26 season of the Saudi Arabian league in an upcoming column.
Canadian international defensive midfielder Desiree Scott has retired from football
Long-time Canadian international midfielder and NWSL veteran Desiree Scott (38) has retired from the game, following a season with the Ottawa Rapids for the inaugural season of the Northern Super League. Scott said: “Being a part of the Northern Super League and representing the Ottawa Rapid in its historic, inaugural season has been an amazing journey. Closing out the final chapter of my playing career here on Canadian soil, in front of incredible fans in a professional league once dreamed of, has been my honour.”
Scott made an immediate impact with Ottawa Rapid FC, scoring the winning goal (and her only goal this season) in the club’s inaugural match on April 27 (2-1) at home over AFC Toronto in front of 6,980 fans at TD Place Stadium. Her only assist of the season came in a 3–0 win over Vancouver on May 15, also at home. She won 188 caps with the Canadian women’s national team, appearing in four Olympic Games, and winning two bronze medals (2012, 2016) and a historic gold medal at Tokyo 2020.
Thomas Gilbert, CEO of Ottawa Rapid FC. “From day 1, Desiree Scott embodied what we aspire to be as a club, as a league, and as Canadians… Through this season, Desiree Scott hasn’t just made Rapid FC better, she has defined what it means to be a member of this organization. As an organization we are deeply grateful and honoured that we have had the opportunity to participate in a small chapter of the legacy that Desiree has established for this sport and this country.”
Scott closed with a message to Canadian soccer supporters: “Canada, keep showing up, supporting, and investing in this league, because we need you to be successful! It has been a wonderful ride. This is me saying thank you to the sport that gave me more than I could ever have asked for. There’s still work to be done though, as we prepare for playoffs and the ultimate goal of lifting that trophy.”
Amen to that—TribalFootball.com wishes Desiree Scott all the best to and we hope she stays involved in the NSL and football in Canada.
With just a few games left in the season (25 regular season matches) AFC Toronto has clinched the regular season title with 48 points from 24 matches (15-3-6, W-D-L) while Scott’s Ottawa Rapid and Montreal Roses are deadlocked in second with 36 points from 23 games and identical 10-6-7 records. Vancouver Rise will be the fourth playoff teams, currently on 33 points with a 9-6-7 record after 22 games and still could finish in second place, depending on other results, particularly with the game in hand over Ottawa and Montreal.
Missing the playoffs this season are the Calgary Wild in fifth with 23 points and a 7-2-14 record from 23 games, and last place Halifax Tides with 16 points from only 3 wins, 7 ties and 13 defeats in 23 games. (See our previous detailed review of the league in August: The Week in Women's Football: Jackie Sawicki exclusive; Smith's Arsenal move; NSL review - TribalFootball.com). This column will look at the NSL again after the playoffs in November.
Draw set for the 2025-26 CONCACAF W Qualifiers for national teams
The 2025-26 CONCACAF W Championship will serve as the Confederation’s qualifier for both the FIFA Women’s World Cup Brazil 2027 and the 2028 LA Summer Olympics. The W Championship Finals will be held in November 2026.
The 29 nations have been drawn into six groups, as follows:
Group A: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, United States Virgin Islands
Group B: Jamaica, Guyana, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda
Group C: Costa Rica, Guatemala, Bermuda, Grenada, Cayman Islands
Group D: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Suriname, Belize, Anguilla
Group E: Panama, Cuba, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Curacao, Aruba
Group F: Trinidad and Tobago, El Salvador, Honduras, Barbados
The eight teams participating in the five-round direct elimination knockout-style competition finals will include the United States and Canada, and the six group winners of the W Qualifiers. The competition will begin with the Quarterfinals, followed by a Play-In, Semifinals, Third-Place Match, and Final. To determine the Quarterfinal pairings and each team’s path to the Final, CONCACAF will rank teams 1-8 based on the FIFA Women’s Rankings, with the highest-ranked team facing the lowest-ranked team.
At the conclusion of the Quarterfinals, the four matchup winners will qualify for the Semifinals and direct qualification to the FIFA 2027 Women’s World Cup Finals in Brazil, while the four teams who lost in the Quarterfinals will progress to a Play-In, from which the two winning teams will qualify for the ten team FIFA Women’s World Cup Intercontinental Playoffs, where three last Finals spots are available.
The W Championship finalists will also secure a berth in the 2028 LA Summer Olympics Games Women’s Football Tournament. Should the United States finish as one of the two W Championship finalists, then CONCACAF’s second berth will be awarded to the competition’s third-place winner (based on the precedent of host nations’ automatic qualification for previous editions of the Olympic Football Tournament at the Summer Olympic Games).
Afghanistan’s Women’s Refugee National Team selects 23 players for their first games in the United Arab Emirates
FIFA has announced the first ever games for their Afghanistan women’s refugee team, participating in a three game tournament entitled the FIFA Unites: Women’s Series in the UAE, with the host nation—coached by former Ireland 2023 WWC head coach Vera Pauw (see: The Week in Women's Football: Asian Cup qualifying; recruiting for national teams - TribalFootball.com)—along with two teams who are currently unranked (and have never been ranked) in the current FIFA women’s national team rankings: Chad and Libya in Africa.
The tournament will be held from October 23 to 29. FIFA President Gianni Infantino said: “Ensuring that all women have access to football is a priority for FIFA and a key element in shaping the future of our sport. We are aware of the potential the game has both on and off the pitch. These friendly matches represent more than just a competition; they are a symbol of hope and progress for women all over the world. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who are contributing to this event, including the United Arab Emirates Football Association for hosting a historic event that puts the players in the international spotlight.”
The first ever Aghan refugee national team was named after three multi-day talent identification camps held on two continents. The first camp was staged in Sydney, Australia, followed by two held at England’s renowned St. George’s Park National Football Centre in Burton upon Trent. Approximately 70 players across Australia and Europe were assessed by the team’s head coach, former Scotland international Pauline Hamill (see: The Week in Women's Football: Bermuda win Island Games; Champions League review; Hera make history - TribalFootball.com).
The 23 players selected were: Montaha Moslih, Bahara Samimi, Khursand Azizi, Susan Khojasta, Mursal Sadat, Mona Amini, Sevin Azimi, Nazia Ali, Manozh Noori, Fatema Haidari, Nilab Mohammadi, Fatima Yousufi, Kereshma Abasi, Najma Arefi, Bahara Kohistani, Zainab Mozaffari, Mina Ahmadi, Elaha Safdari, Maryam Karimyar, Fatema Urfani, Azi Zada, Sosan Mohammadi, Bibi Noori. The Afghan women’s refugee squad included 13 players based in Australia, five who reside in the United Kingdom, as well as three from Portugal and two from Italy. The team’s support staff is comprised of 20 professionals, representing five continents.
Infantino added: “The announcement of the Afghan women’s refugee inaugural squad is a truly special and symbolic moment, not only for these 23 remarkable players, but also for women’s football as a whole. This initiative underlines the power of our sport to bring hope, opportunity and unity.” The Afghanistan Women’s National Team went dormant after the Taliban took over the country in August of 2021 from the local government, and many people—including their national team players—fled the country as women’s sports in general are not consistent with the Taliban’s policies.
Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribal Football. His latest book Beyond Bend it Like Beckham on the global game of women’s football. Get your copy today. Follow Tim on X: @TimGrainey