First, the feeling was shock. Then, overwhelming relief. The spectre of Goodison Park being bulldozed had long gnawed at the hearts of Everton staff and players, a tension alongside the buzz of moving into the new stadium.
Even plans for a long-mooted Legacy Project came with melancholy, the knowledge that 133 years of history would come to an end.
So when rumours began to rumble throughout the club in January that Goodison Park may instead become the home of the women’s team, maintaining its identity as a home for future Everton teams, the sense of salvation was hard to ignore, according to sources who did not wish to be named to protect relationships.
Following a month-long feasibility study conducted by an external agency on behalf of Everton’s new owners, The Friedkin Group (TFG), Everton Women will be moving out of Walton Hall Park and into Goodison Park for the 2025-26 Women’s Super League (WSL) season.
The study focused not only on the financial implications of a move, but also on the cultural and community impact. It assessed whether a move to Goodison for Everton Women would be feasible and sustainable, and whether scope was there to improve the existing facilities at the historic stadium.
Conversations with various stakeholders, including WSL officials, staff, fan groups and local authorities, were part of the process.
Everton acknowledge they will lose money on this, though the loss is not expected to be significant.
An external funding partner is considered unlikely. TFG is prepared to underwrite the next steps for the women’s team as well as the men, having provided resources to improve one of its other sides, Roma Femminile.
A reconfigured Goodison will host Everton’s women from next season (MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Crucially, expenditure on women’s football is not included in profit and sustainability calculations. Last season, Everton received two separate points deductions for breaching financial rules.
Everton in the Community are expected to move their headquarters into the stadium, from nearby Spellow Lane, in an expansion of their existing footprint.
Maintaining a presence in the area has long been considered a priority, with the Kirkdale and County wards situated around Goodison in the top one per cent of the most deprived neighbourhoods nationally.
In a statement on Tuesday, Everton said the relocation would “generate economic opportunities for local businesses through matchday football”. It is anticipated that women’s and girls’ sports and health programmes will be held at the ground, while tours are also expected to continue.
The comparatively shorter domestic season in women’s football (compared to the men’s) means the club will open the pitch and stadium to hire, as well as host select academy matches.
However, Goodison Park will, first and foremost, be the home of Everton Women.
Everton’s pedigree in the women’s game is rich, but persistent challenges and recent mid-table finishes have belied it.
In 1920, Goodison played host to a landmark game between Dick, Kerr Ladies and St Helens Ladies. The 45,000 crowd that day remains one of the largest attendances for a women’s club match in England.
Founded as Everton Ladies FC in 1995, the club were one of the eight founding teams in the inaugural WSL season in 2011 and regularly competed for silverware, including winning the 2010 FA Cup.
Their most recent silverware is the 2017 WSL Spring Series (an interim edition of the WSL between the sixth and seventh full seasons, to allow the league’s change from a summer competition to a winter one).
Restoring Everton to the top of the women’s game to compete with Chelsea and Arsenal is the ambition, and a move to Goodison is viewed as a crucial stepping stone.
Publicly and behind the scenes, TFG made improving the fortunes of manager Brian Sorensen’s side an early priority. It quickly came to the conclusion that facilities for the women’s team were not of the required standard at Walton Hall Park.
TFG has pointed to its track record at Roma, where the women’s team won successive league titles between 2022 and 2024, before being dethroned by rivals Juventus this season, as proof of its commitment.
“We are proud to say our women will have an unrivalled permanent home in the WSL — another statement of intent as we look to build the foundations that will help us challenge for trophies,” Everton CEO Angus Kinnear, a recent arrival from Leeds United, said.
“The women’s game has grown significantly in recent years and we believe that growth will continue and accelerate. We’re under no illusions; there are obstacles we need to overcome to make this a success both practically and economically, but we’re confident that we will overcome those challenges.”
Women’s first-team staff and players at Everton had been aware that the move was likely since the start of the year, but a formal presentation outlining timescales and details was not provided to the team until the week before the official announcement. The prospective move was flagged in a late March address to staff by executive-chair Marc Watts.
While no stands will be knocked down and the structure of Goodison Park is expected to remain intact for at least the next five years, major upgrades to player and fan facilities will take place, including to the dressing rooms and the addition of women’s toilets.
Sorensen has been in charge of Everton women since April 2022 (Tony McArdle/Everton FC via Getty Images)
At this stage, there is no need for Everton to submit a planning application. After consultation with league officials, the club have stressed that the stadium meets “many, if not all, of the WSL requirements”.
It is unlikely a pre-season match will be held at the ground given the quick turnaround. The 2025-26 WSL season will commence across the weekend of September 6 and Goodison Park is expected to be ready.
The idea is not to move women into a vacated men’s space, but to turn the men’s space into one appropriate for the women’s team. This will mean configuring the dressing rooms to suit women’s players. On a very basic level, there will be a need for more women’s facilities across the whole stadium.
The women’s team — which has generated an average season attendance of just over 2,000 for the past three years, due largely to the limit of Walton Hall Park — is not expected to fill Goodison’s near 40,000-capacity. That the team only plays 13 to 16 home matches in the season (with a five-week winter break in the middle) poses a financial hurdle.
A reconfiguration of the stadium is a means of offsetting some of the financial loss caused by a drop in gate receipts, as well as addressing the atmosphere from emptier stands.
The plan is to close off the upper tiers of Goodison Park, creating an intimate dome around the pitch. The club say that the capacity will be flexible. Banners, flags and other branding could be used to cover the empty upper tiers, while seats will be sold as close to the pitch as possible first, then moving backwards to meet demand.
That Everton were in a position first to pursue, and then commit, to this move surprised many at the club. While making Goodison Park the home for the women’s team had always been a possibility, the past few years of financial squeezing weighed heavy and few believed they were in a place to consider a move that will cost the club money.
TFG’s arrival in December, though, opened doors that had been closed. Everton had been far down the line on the Legacy Project during Farhad Moshiri’s tenure, going as far as to unveil plans and designs. Little progress was made beyond that point.
After taking over from Moshiri at the end of last year, the new owners pushed for speedy resolutions on the Legacy Project and Goodison’s future.
Now, the two elements will in effect be part of one catch-all solution, even if it means, as sources have suggested, that certain pieces have needed to be ‘untangled’ and plans have had to change.
What was once a community legacy will now incorporate a significant footballing element. There will be no affordable housing development, as was originally anticipated. Mental health initiatives, meanwhile, will continue to take place across EITC sites.
When new owners The Friedkin Group travelled to Liverpool in January and paid a visit to Walton Hall Park (TFG had wanted to attend a competitive match, but the WSL’s winter break, which runs for five weeks between December and January, did not permit), they are said to have been disappointed by the facilities for players and fans.
With Walton Hall Park belonging to Liverpool council and rented by Everton, any adjustments and improvements to facilities were seen as not benefiting Everton in the long term. Further, all refreshment sales did not go to Everton, but to Walton Hall Park.
Walton Hall Park did not impress TFG (Jess Hornby/Getty Images)
A capacity of 2,200 (only a portion of which is sheltered) posed issues amid standard-raising by Women’s Professional Leagues Limited, who took over the running of the WSL and Women’s Championship. Everton’s contract with Liverpool City Council over their continued use of Walton Hall Park was set to expire at the end of March.
During their January visit, TFG gathered the women’s team and staff in the middle of the pitch at the Finch Farm training ground and spoke about their vision for the future. The speech, according to those who were there, was rousing, but importantly confirmed that time was of the essence, too.
New contracts for manager Sorensen and assistant manager Stephen Neligan, along with defenders Kenzie Weir and Clare Wheeler and January signings Hayley Ladd and Kelly Gago from Manchester United and Nantes respectively, are viewed as anchoring points for the future.
The departure of the popular women’s CEO Alan McTavish was described by one source as an example of the ownership “not taking any prisoners” in its pursuit of raising standards across the board. A replacement is expected to be appointed in the coming weeks.
“When they were talking about their vision, you could feel they really wanted to invest in us,” Everton midfielder Karen Holmgaard told The Athletic. “We’ve got money in the women’s team now and we can see the future as better.”
Few, if any, clubs have access to a fully functional, freshly vacated (albeit ageing) stadium ready for a women’s team, so TFG has been smart, too, but it will cost them.
Those within the club believe that if convenience and hard economics were the main driving forces, a move to nearby Widnes or St Helens rugby league clubs would have saved money. Goodison Park, it is estimated, could have been sold to developers for anywhere between £2m-£5million.
The driver behind the move is to give the women’s team a “forever home”, but there is no doubting the recruitment and commercial opportunities this move provides.
A new broadcast deal for the WSL next season means nearly all of Everton’s home matches will be televised on Sky Sports or BBC2.
Turning England’s first purpose-built football stadium into the country’s first standalone women’s football stadium is viewed as a bold and attractive statement for prospective investors and sponsors. In that sense, it is hoped Goodison can be a catalyst for future growth.
Under TFG, sources within the women’s football team say they feel “more seen and included” in the club’s ecosystem, including at Finch Farm, where they have been sharing facilities and training pitches with the men’s first team and academy teams.
Staff and players rarely interacted with the previous owners and many of the women’s staff say they felt siloed from club decisions.
Instilling that same sensation among fans is the next step, sources say. It is hoped that nostalgia and force of habit will help catalyse larger, long-term attendances for the women’s team, though the ability to attract new fans who might not have felt comfortable attending a men’s game is a factor.
Remaining in the city of Liverpool is likely to be a big draw. Everton’s research showed that just under 60 per cent of WSL matchgoers live within 20 kilometers of a stadium.
Next season, Everton are hopeful of putting on more pre-match events and engaging local women’s and girls’ community groups.
The club are aware of the perception of the ground not being “fit for purpose” for the men’s team and do not want the conclusion to be drawn that what is not OK for the men’s team is for the women’s team.
Goodison Park will not be stripped of its history and all statues will remain in place. New women’s team-specific branding will be added inside and eventually outside the ground.
Success for the women’s team will be determined by results on the pitch and the club are not expecting attendances to quadruple in one season. The move is viewed as part of a long-term investment in the women’s team under TFG.
How successful the club’s American ownership is in achieving its lofty goals remains to be seen, but after a turbulent couple of years, a bold new vision may be just what Everton Women need.
(Top photo: Katja Snoeijs scores for Everton in the derby at Goodison this season; by Jess Hornby – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)