London City Lionesses’ goal is to reach the Women’s Super League “as fast as possible”, according to Markel Zubizarreta, who has been appointed global sporting director for the club’s ambitious owners.
He has been hired by Kynisca, a multi-club organisation for women’s teams which also owns European giants Lyon and Washington Spirit of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).
Zubizarreta is former head of women’s football at the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), and was sporting director of Barcelona’s women’s team, who have won three of the past four Women’s Champions Leagues.
“When we have the multi-club environment, you can sell them a bigger project,” said Zubizarreta. “We want to have all of them at the best level we can and winning as many games as we can. The goal at London City is to try and achieve [promotion to] the WSL as fast as possible.”
London City signed Sweden captain Kosovare Asllani and broke the Women’s Championship transfer record this summer when they signed forward Izzy Goodwin from Sheffield United for a six-figure fee.
The club are fourth out of 12 teams in the second-tier Championship, with three wins, one draw and one loss from their opening five games. Only the champions are promoted to the WSL.
Big signings, big ambitions
Kynisca is owned by American businesswoman Michele Kang, who sees women’s football as big business and has made her intentions clear with hopes to buy more clubs.
In August, Kang also announced a £39m global investment in improving the health of elite female athletes.
“With the amount of signings, we need to build a team in terms of 24 women who don’t know each other and need to achieve the goal,” added Zubizarreta. “If this means we get promoted this season, it would be great.
“If it isn’t, the work we are doing is to try to be better every day, and if this happens we will get promoted. When you are talking about a project like the one we have, when Michele calls nobody says ‘no’.
“We also had the national coach of Sweden, Peter Gerhardsson, at the game against Bristol and he was impressed, saying: ‘This is the Championship, but we’re talking about a professional environment like any other in top clubs across the world.'”
‘Better than Barca’s training centre’
Five of the 12 current WSL teams play in the capital – Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Tottenham and West Ham – while London City Lionesses moved to Hayes Lane in the summer, home of men’s League Two club Bromley, in the summer.
London City Lionesses have also relocated their training facilities to Aylesford in Kent, and Zubizarreta believes the club’s set-up is worthy of top-tier football.
“If you only invest in players but not staff or facilities it doesn’t make sense. It has to be at the same level,” he said.
“The facilities we have are impressive. The first time I arrived at the training centre, I know all the ones in Spain and it’s much better than even the training centre of Barcelona. Any player can be attracted to this environment.
“We need to put everything in the correct place, but we want to invest and give the first team very good facilities so they can improve, and the correct space for the academy to work with the young girls who at the beginning only want to play football.
“Let’s see if we can bring some of them to the first team.”