Ascot United and Maidenhead United are two of 52 FA Women’s National League clubs who have signed a letter sent to the Football Association expressing concern over proposals to incorporate top-flight Professional Games Academy (PGA) teams into their system.
The FA is planning structural changes that would allow the four clubs of the Women’s Super League to enter academy teams into the third division from 2027. The letter sent on Thursday strongly rejected the proposals and claimed that “board representatives did not consult with their clubs”.
The clubs have formed what they call an ‘alliance’ to oppose the board’s decision and have requested a special general meeting (SGM) with the FA. They described the proposal as “morally wrong” and said the FAWNL had shown a “lack of respect” for players and staff.
There are currently 72 clubs in the FAWNL so the number of clubs involved in the letter exceeds the two-thirds majority required to convene a meeting. The 72 clubs comprise two regional divisions in Tier 3 and a further four regional divisions in Tier 4 – which includes Yellas and Magpies in Division 1 South West who both recently enjoyed their highest league finishes in the 2026/27 season.
Maidenhead United manager Dave Kitson said: “We are concerned about the consultation process in this emotional matter. League competitions certainly exist to provide the best service to their members and the limited information we have received has not really been of any real benefit to us as an FAWNL club”
“The argument that elite young players need game time in adult football is debatable. One reason is that FIFA recommends that additional training is more beneficial for young players than extra games. This is also echoed by Arsene Wenger. Over the last few seasons, we as a club have engaged with big clubs at the top level and have successfully loaned or re-registered some outstanding young talent. Loan opportunities also exist in men’s football, where – to add context – the introduction of EPL ‘B’ teams into the EFL League I will not be tolerated.”
“It’s also worth noting that the FAWNL Cup has been expanded to allow PGA teams to take part. We’re not against this, we’re not against innovation. But it seems reasonable to expect that the FAWNL should put the thinking of its member clubs at the heart of everything they do.”
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
