QUEENS PARK REVOLUTIONARIES “Women’s team is not a nice to have, it’s an obligation”

In 1982, QPR was the first men’s league team to allow the Women’s FA Cup final to be played on its pitch. Now, the legendary Loftus Road regularly plays host to their Tier 4 women’s team. The club also has a long history of supporting player development: their most prestigious export is, of course, Chloe Kelly, but their well-honed youth programme has developed many talented youngsters over the years. But despite this, they didn’t have a senior women’s team until 2019. Clare McEwen learns more about their future ambitions for the team.

Until 18 months ago, the women’s team was run by QPR’s Community Trust. Now it is fully under the QPR umbrella and CEO Christian Nourry and his team have big plans to help grow women’s football within the capital. For a start, their stated objective is to attempt to get to WSL2 within four seasons. Currently, they’re in Tier 4, so that means being promoted twice in that timeframe. Ambitious? Very. Possible? QPR think so.

But as much as they want to see how far they can get in women’s football, the real motivation for Nourry is simply that elevating women’s football is “the right thing to do”. In the past 18 months, the club have backed up this ethos. The team now train three times a week at the same training ground as the EFL Championship men’s team. This season, for the first time, they have a full-time coach in Danny Harrigan. They’re starting to build a staff around the team with scouts looking for new talent, and a sports science provision that is top level for Tier 4. And they’re working hard to get alignment across the whole club from youth to senior teams, across women’s and men’s pathways.

Christian Nourry speaks with a maturity and understanding that belies his young age. I’m sure plenty of club stalwarts would be concerned that a man who is only just entering his late 20s is at the helm of their beloved club, but hearing him speak with genuine passion about women’s football sounds like the future.

When I ask him how he ended up as CEO of QPR he says he’d give me the short story because “it’s not about me”. His deflection was humble but, like it or not, CEOs are the story when it comes to driving women’s football forward or stalling it in the blocks.

Nourry is the former.

Having previously supported ownership groups in the acquisition of football clubs, he was “fortunate enough to meet the ownership group at QPR.” Following discussions, he found himself amongst stakeholders who knew the club needed a different direction. His experience and vision impressed, and 18-months ago he became CEO. And in an ever-changing landscape for clubs who want to understand and support their women’s teams, his youth and perspective are refreshing.

“I do think one of the things about my age that is helpful, both on the men’s and women’s side, is I have a stronger understanding of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, just because I am Gen Z and close to Gen Alpha. So, trying to understand one, what motivates our players on both sides of the game, but also in general, how we can try to unlock younger fan bases, I have a perspective that’s maybe a little unique.”

His answer interested me. A game very much steeped in history, with set ways, which had discriminated against women (amongst others) for so long, having a fresh, young perspective that might challenge the status quo in a different way. For all the great traditions of football, sometimes things need shaking up.

As Nourry pointed out, “ultimately a football club is made up of our supporters. I want to make sure that as many of our fans as possible feel represented by what we do as a football club.

If we want to be a football club that stands for values that we believe in, and care about equal opportunity pathways, about creating as many moments for as many people to connect and be inspired by, then the women’s team is not a nice to have, it’s an obligation because, ultimately, that’s how I think, in an ideal world, the world would work.”

This sentiment drives the club’s ethos. QPR are integrating the female and male sides of the club more closely, sharing resources, and laying foundations that will help them achieve their ambitions, whilst building their community and fanbase. And that fanbase is growing: Loftus Road saw a record crowd of 2,307 fans watch the women’s dramatic 2-all draw against Luton Town, recently. 

The clarity in messaging shone through from Head of Women’s Operations, Will Lambert, too:

“It’s been a really exciting journey to take the women’s team on so far, building the foundations of what we hope is going to be some long-term success. There’s a few different reasons [for bringing the women’s team under the QPR umbrella], partly because of demand and the right for our fans, who are men, women, boys, girls, to have a men’s and women’s team that they’re proud of. We want to try to put our men’s, women’s, academy boys and girls, everyone that’s related, in the best possible position to achieve success.

Aligning the women’s department and the women’s team and our entire goal structures within the club in the remit so we can provide them with those opportunities to achieve success. Alignment was the key.”

Whilst other clubs are getting rid of women’s teams to save money, QPR accept that progress doesn’t come cheap. When asked about the financial side, Nourry was candid:

“Our men’s team loses money every year right now, our women’s team at the moment is obviously in a similar spot. I think we’ve got to have humility. The focus at the moment is how do we get more people connected with QPR? How can we support the women’s team? Ultimately, it is the correct thing to do. Build connections between young fans and players over the course of this journey to the point, hopefully, we’ll be able to grow the support for the women’s team, in the years to come, to be in a situation where we can talk about filling out Loftus Road. 

From a business side, not every team in British women’s football at the moment is in a position where they can legitimately claim a strong pathway to profitability, but that is the exact same on the men’s side. I don’t know off the top of my head, but if you looked at the top three divisions of English football last year, I’d be amazed if you could find six, seven teams that posted a profit. So we want to get people energised because we believe very much in the women’s team’s potential to be successful much like we do in the men’s team.”

QPR’s model is based on doing the right thing for their players, their fans, and their community. And if they build it right, people will come to watch; they’ll buy into the women’s team just like they do the men’s team. By investing in their players and giving them the best opportunities to progress, they improve their product and their chances of a return on their investment. Other clubs up and down the pyramid would do well to watch QPR’s Gen Z leader because he understands the future in a way that football’s traditions do not. The right thing to do now, might also be the profitable thing, later.