The news that Katie Robinson was to leave the club this summer was predictably met with much wailing and gnashing of teeth on social media. One of the best young talents in our squad is going elsewhere, panic stations, man the relegation lifeboats – we’re going down! Or not, we’ll see.

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This reaction speaks to something I’ve discussed on the SheGulls podcast many times – the women’s game ‘bubble’. Everyone outside the bubble thinks women’s football is 60,000 fans at an Arsenal game, glamorous Instagram posts, and the Lionesses on TV being given awards right, left and centre. The truth is, inside the bubble, almost all of the issues that have been pervasive in the sport still remain. To discuss them all is a task so broad I may just consider writing a separate series of articles on them one day.

The Women’s Super League only became fully professional in 2018 – that’s just 6 short years ago. Even those players good enough to be on full-time contracts before then were mostly on single year deals because of the financial precarity of women’s football clubs. As recently as last year we saw Reading, who admittedly have broader issues, revert to a semi-professional setup after being fully professional since the league’s inception. Apparently in the 22/23 season owner Dai Yongge invested just under £1M to keep the club in operation. On the one hand you can imagine that such a loss is unsustainable for Yongge in particular, but on the other hand over £400M was spent simply on agents fees in the Premier League between 1st Feb 2023 – 1st Feb 2024. This is the dichotomy of football. A level playing field for women? Inside the bubble they’re not even on the same pitch.

With that information in mind you can see how affected the women’s game is by the level of money and investment involved. Whilst Chelsea men can offer an eight year contract with signing and performance bonuses, Chelsea women have really only just begun to sign players to deals of three years or more – and they’ve won the WSL five times in a row.

In that context, Brighton & Hove Albion Women, who have never finished above 6th in the WSL and as an organisation has one of the lowest budgets in the men’s top flight, can generally only offer most players a contract for 2 years as standard. In the case of Robinson she signed for the Albion in 2020 and extended her deal in 2022 to June 2024 – which is *checks imaginary watch* now.

Players who can be brought in without a fee will always be of interest to other clubs, particularly if they’re young and talented like Robbo. Her agent will have been fielding offers, likely for the last 6-12 months, including one from Brighton to extend her contract again. The fact an extension wasn’t agreed before the end of the season to me was telling. She knows she’ll get an offer elsewhere for more money, more success, or both, somewhere else. That is her right, it is the eminently sensible thing to do, and anyone else would do the same. Much as we like to see her as one of our own, she has no real links to Brighton, the area, the manager (whomever that will be), or the staff, beyond the obvious fact that she’s been here for 4 years. She doesn’t owe us anything.

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So where are the club responsible and should they be receiving as much blame as they have been on social media? Effectively all Brighton could do was put forward their best contractual offer in the same way every other club was welcome to do once Robinson’s current term ran out. We have no idea what the deal looked like, but we do know one was offered – the club announced as much on their website. Without two key pieces of information we cannot, and should not, blame the club, at least not in this isolated incident. Robbo may well have decided to move on regardless of what the club offered, if she ends up at an Arsenal or Manchester United, few would blame her. Equally the deal Brighton put forward could have been far below what she could obtain elsewhere, or with less security, and so the decision was made from that perspective. We don’t know, we likely will never know, and as such we cannot pin the responsibility on any one party or factor.

Let’s put this to bed though – the club did not ‘let her go’ as I’ve seen suggested online. The economic situation in women’s football has historically precluded long term-contracts being offered and as such players are frequently able to move clubs as a free agent. The Albion did endeavour to extend her current deal, but as a 9th place team who has to work within a budget almost certainly a substantial distance below that of the so-called ‘big four’ in the WSL, it’s not altogether surprising that it was rejected. If the club are culpable in any way it would simply be because they haven’t progressed up the table enough to be considered a serious contender to break into that WSL top four that the club has often touted as a future goal.

The cold hard fact is that there isn’t a lot of money in women’s football right now. It’s getting better, it’s growing, and the formation of a club-owned company (currently known as NewCo) to run the professional game in England will certainly help. As the clubs develop and the financial sustainability increases alongside revenue, we will hopefully see contracts similar to those in the men’s game – say for three to four years – which gives the player more security and allows for the club to maximise a potential sale or extend their contract in good time.

This one didn’t work out for the Albion, or our fans, but Robbo must do what’s best for her and that doesn’t mean that the club should be unduly criticised. Let’s see what happens once the transfer window opens on 24th June and the ensuing summer – then if we look at the squad and it hasn’t improved – we can all get on board with demanding more.