Plymouth Argyle defends decision to cut women's team budget and not renew contracts

Plymouth Argyle have said they “did not take lightly” their decision to significantly reduce their women’s team’s budget and tell the squad via email that their contracts were not being renewed.

The Guardian reported on Sunday evening that the vast majority of the squad had received a letter, via email, which began abruptly with: “Hi all. Following our end-of-season review and planning for 2026-27, we wanted to let you know that we won’t be renewing contracts for the players included in this message.”

Plymouth, who compete in the third tier of the English women’s pyramid and narrowly missed out on promotion to Women’s Super League 2 in May, said in a statement on Monday evening that they “recognise concerns regarding the way this news was communicated, internally and externally, and will review this”, after the players issued a joint statement condemning the email as “cold, impersonal and lacking empathy”.

Commenting publicly on the matter for the first time, Plymouth said: “The football club has had to make some very tough decisions regarding the Argyle Women’s team.

“We remain committed to women’s football, and we will work on and share our visions for next season, and beyond. After a lengthy, thorough review, we made the decision that, from next season, we would need to change our approach as regards the women’s team setup. Last season, to get to a cup final and to a playoff game, was a superb achievement, but it came at a cost; a higher financial cost than we had previously thought.

“Had we achieved promotion to the WSL2, with a great deal of central funding to assist us, we would have been able to continue our backing at similar levels.

“However, in tier three, taking into account some of the proposed administrative changes to the governance of women’s football in this country, and in light of the financial state of the football club overall, we made the difficult decision to not renew any of the players’ contracts for next season. This was not taken lightly. It was done with a view to sustainability, and with the club’s long-term interests in mind.”

As well as confirming they would remain in the Women’s National League South, the club’s statement also confirmed that the reason the former Chelsea and Manchester City goalkeeper Marie Hourihan resigned as head coach on 28 May was she had learned of this planned decrease in the budget: “We informed head coach Marie Hourihan of our decision, at which point she made the decision to step down.”

Plymouth reached 4 May’s playoff decider for a place in WSL2 but lost 1-0 to Wolves, who were promoted.