World Sevens Football Debut

The debut of the World Sevens Football League exhibits great potential for the growth of Women's Professional Soccer.

Out with the old, in with the new. In the coming weeks, there will be a brand new global women's event: Women’s World Sevens Football (W7F). Similar to the World Rugby SVNS, W7F hopes to spark a wave of international competitions over the coming years. It is described as a “grand slam series” that will begin May 21-23 with an inaugural tournament at the Estadio Antonio Coimbra da Mota in Portugal. From there the series will travel to soccer-loving cities around the world. The future events are still being planned, but W7F hopes to host one more outside of Europe in 2025.

The inaugural tournament will have eight professional women's club teams. These teams have yet to be released by the organizers. Ultimately they will be playing for the $5 million prize. The competition format will be a two-day round robin tournament and a knockout stage. Each club will play between 3 and 5 games throughout the whole tournament. Each game is about 30 minutes long (2 15 minute halves) and the pitch is half the size of a regular field. 

W7F was founded by Gotham FC shareholder Jennifer Mackesy. We had the pleasure of speaking with Mackesy about the project. She hopes that this new structure will excite and attract more fans to the sport of women’s soccer. She believes that the 7-on-7 format will have more action, pulling in fans for the traditional 11v11 play. They also believe that it will give professional women's players around the world an opportunity to make more money and gain recognition. W7F formed an advisory council that includes retired superstars such as Kelley O’Hara, Anite Asante, Caroline Seger, Tobin Heath, and Laura Georges. 

The timing of the first tournament falls in the middle of NWSL’s season, meaning that a US NWSL team will likely not participate. However, with the goal of multiple international competitions, the NWSL will be a large member in the future.

Sources:

Kassouf, Jeff. “Women’s World Sevens Football League to Debut in May with $5M Purses.” ESPN, March 20, 2025. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/44321897/world-sevens-football-league-5m-purses.

World Sevens Football, https://www.worldsevensfootball.com/