PFA Launches New Pre-Season Camp for Out-of-Contract Players

Every July, the same pictures flood timelines. Players back in club colours. Laughter in the gym. Laps in the sun. The reset button hit on another season.

For those still without a club, those images sting.

“Every player I spoke to mentioned that moment,” said Victoria Williams, Head of Women’s Football at the Professional Footballers’ Association and former defender for Chelsea and Brighton & Hove Albion. “They’d had positive seasons or had come back from injury, but then they started seeing players returning to clubs and that’s when their minds started racing.”

This summer, the PFA decided that feeling needed a counterweight.

Across the weeks commencing 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. A proper camp. Not a holding pattern.

It offered an elite training environment, but also something harder to measure: structure, belonging, and time to think clearly about the next move.

A camp born from a changing game

The women’s game in England is shifting at speed. Investment climbs, standards rise, and overseas players continue to see the WSL as a destination, not a stepping stone. With WSL2 now fully professional ahead of the 2025/26 season, the landscape beneath players’ feet has changed.

The PFA has moved with it. Membership now covers both top tiers, meaning more women than ever can tap into union support, including when they are in the most vulnerable phase of a career: between contracts.

“The intention has always been to run a women’s camp alongside the men’s,” Williams said. “Now that WSL2 is fully professional, we’re seeing more players who genuinely want to build a career in football. If they’re out of contract, especially in WSL2, dropping into tier three isn’t always straightforward because of the differences in professional conditions.

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

This is the gap the camp set out to fill. Not a charity exercise. A response to a professional era that can be ruthless.

More than fitness drills

On paper, the programme looks like a standard pre-season. Daily football sessions. Gym work. High standards, high tempo.

In reality, it went a lot deeper.

Alongside the on-pitch work, players had access to the PFA’s wellbeing, personal development and business school teams. The idea was clear: train like a pro, but also plan like one.

“I think people sometimes see these camps as somewhere players go because they haven’t got a club, but it’s not like that,” Williams said. “They’re there so players can train in an elite environment while having the time and space to make the best decision for themselves.

“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.”

For former Nottingham Forest striker Libby Smith, the difference was immediate.

“The facilities are top. Everything is professional. It’s all run very smoothly,” she said.

“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.”

That last line is the point. This isn’t a waiting room. It’s a launchpad.

A place to go, and a reason to get there

For many players, the biggest shift wasn’t physical at all. It was psychological.

“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.

“It’s exactly what we hear from the men’s camps as well. It’s a genuine feeling of, ‘I've got a purpose and somewhere to go where I feel supported and I’ve got a bit of autonomy over my future’.”

That sense of purpose matters more as the women’s game professionalises. Contracts can be short. Squads turn over quickly. One injury or one tactical change can leave a player exposed.

“There can be financial pressure, personal circumstances and the feeling that time is running out,” Williams said. “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.”

So the camp tried to recreate what players miss most when they leave a club: rhythm, routine, and a group around them.

“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. “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.”

Early returns and bigger ambitions

For a first attempt, the signs were encouraging. Players received multiple offers even before the camp had finished. The model worked where it matters most: in helping players bridge the gap to their next contract.

The PFA has already started tweaking the blueprint. Feedback from this inaugural group is shaping plans for next summer. An earlier start is on the table. So are friendly matches, mirroring the long-established men’s programme and adding a competitive edge that scouts and clubs can track.

“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.”

The players who took a chance on year one have done more than keep themselves fit. They have set a standard.

“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. Hopefully, next year more players will look at this and think, ‘Maybe I should register too’.”

The women’s game in England is no longer just about who has a contract and who doesn’t. With initiatives like this, it’s also about who has a safety net, a plan, and somewhere to go when the pictures of pre-season start rolling in.