The rise of women's soccer has led to more professional options for athletes

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The rise of women's soccer has led to more professional options for athletes

2025-05-06 02:27 Last Updated At：02:41

As the popularity of women's soccer grows, so have the opportunities for players looking to make the sport a career.

The National Women's Soccer League was once the lone professional women's league in North America. But others have more recently jumped into the market, including the USL's Super League and the Northern Super League in Canada.

And now it appears lower-tier leagues are forming, too. The NWSL has asked U.S. Soccer to sanction a second-division league that would include at least six teams and possibly launch in 2026. The WPSL Pro also will launch next year as a second-tier league.

“I think this is what progress looks like,” said Amanda Vandervort, president of the USL Super League. "I think the more options there are, whether it’s owners, investors, players, or fans, the better it is for everyone. And competition is good for the development of the game.”

The Super League sits on the top tier of women's professional soccer in the United States alongside the NWSL. The eight-team league plays on a fall-to-spring calendar like many international leagues, and is currently in the stretch run of its inaugural season. A ninth team will join next season.

Although the Super League doesn't share the same national profile, level of competition or attendance as the NWSL, the two leagues aren't necessarily built to be rivals. Growing the game is good business.

NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman believes there's room for everyone.

“There are countless examples of players who were unsigned in our league who ended up going to some of those other leagues, who are still able to play the sport of soccer and continue their careers. And maybe there’s a world where they find their way back to the NWSL," Berman said. "If they didn’t have a place to go and play in the interim, they might not have continued to play."

There are signs of the mutually beneficial relationship. The NWSL's Washington Spirit has loaned several players to the Super League's Dallas Trinity this season. The NWSL's Gotham FC played a pair of preseason friendlies against the Super League's Fort Lauderdale United and Tampa Bay Sun.

Jumping into the fray is the Northern Super League, which kicked off last month in Canada. The league has long been a dream of former national team star and co-founder Diana Matheson. It has been boosted by Christine Sinclair, international soccer's all-time leading goal scorer.

Canada was one of just two countries that played in the 2023 Women's World Cup without a domestic professional league. The other was Haiti.

While a majority of the players in the league are Canadian, 20 other countries are represented, too. The league minimum salary is $50,000.

"It’s a global industry and we’re competing with leagues all over the world, which is the reality. But I think in North America specifically, I think us, the NWSL, Liga MX Femenil in Mexico, also know that we have the opportunity to really build women’s soccer in our region,” Matheson said. "I think we’ve got three very competitive tier-one women’s pro leagues in our region that can work together to build that landscape."

Liga MX Femenil is the most established of the women's professional leagues in North America outside of the NWSL. It has 18 teams, all associated with men's teams.

“The interest in women’s soccer is growing, we are in the conversation now and changing narratives, and that allows us to talk about how much the game has been developing in the country,” league President Mariana Gutierrez told The Associated Press last fall.

More options are coming. Should U.S. Soccer sanction the lower-division NWSL league, it will serve to develop players as part of the greater soccer ecosystem, bridging the gap between amateur soccer and the top tier.

Cleveland Soccer Group, which had bid in the latest round of NWSL expansion, pivoted to joining the division 2 WPSL Pro. Cleveland's group, which will also have an ownership stake in the league, will join teams from Atlanta, Dallas, North Carolina, Oklahoma City, Sioux Falls and the San Francisco Bay Area in the league's first season next year.

“Rising demand calls for more options, not fewer,” Vandervort said. “And if you look at the landscape today, we still don't have as many options for women to go pro, even with the addition of these leagues, as the men do. If you look across the landscape, across the cities, the communities, the towns, that don't have access to women's pro soccer today, there's a huge gap. So the more women's soccer we have, the greater our sport will become, the more dynamic, the more exciting for fans, the more opportunity for players and coaches and staff, and everyone involved in the game.”

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Video captures Minneapolis immigration arrest in a city on edge after shooting of Renee Good

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal agents carrying out immigration arrests in Minnesota's Twin Cities region already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman rammed the door of one home Sunday and pushed their way inside, part of what the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest enforcement operation ever.

In a dramatic scene similar to those playing out across Minneapolis, agents captured a man in the home just minutes after pepper spraying protesters outside who had confronted the heavily armed federal agents. Along the residential street, protesters honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt the operation.

Video of the clash taken by The Associated Press showed some agents pushing back protesters while a distraught woman later emerged from the house with a document that federal agents presented to arrest the man. Signed by an immigration officer, the document — unlike a warrant signed by a judge — does not authorize forced entry into a private residence. A warrant signed by an immigration officer only authorizes arrest in a public area.

Immigrant advocacy groups have conducted extensive “know-your-rights” campaigns urging people not to open their doors unless agents have a court order signed by a judge.

But within minutes of ramming the door in a neighborhood filled with single-family homes, the handcuffed man was led away.

More than 2,000 immigration arrests have been made in Minnesota since the enforcement operation began at the beginning of December, said Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News on Sunday that the administration would send additional federal agents to Minnesota to protect immigration officers and continue enforcement.

The Twin Cities — the latest target in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign — is bracing for what is next after 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration officer on Wednesday.

“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”

Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.

People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners Sunday in the neighborhood where Good was killed, watching for any signs of federal agents.

More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .

“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.

The protests have been largely peaceful, but residents remained anxious. On Monday, Minneapolis public schools will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.

Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.

While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said that the investigation into Good's shooting death should not be overseen solely by the federal government.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.

“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened," Smith said on ABC’s "This Week."

The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.

Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”

"That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.

Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn't be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”

The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests in cities across the country over the weekend, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Oakland, California.

Contributing were Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis; Thomas Strong in Washington; Bill Barrow in Atlanta; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio.