Marketing Manager - Athlete Brand & Brand Collaboration (FTC) thefa in London

Welcome to a new era for women’s professional football in England. With the creation of WSL Football, an independent company solely dedicated to the women’s professional game, we can transform women’s football in this country and, by transforming football, transform society. WSL Football will accelerate the sustainable growth of the women’s game. Our leagues, Barclays WSL and Barclays WSL2, are already the pinnacle of domestic women’s club football.

This role focuses on two of our most exciting growth areas: Athlete Brand Marketing and Brand Collaborations. This season, we piloted an Athlete Brand Marketing Programme with 6 of our 24 clubs, and we are looking to expand the pilot for 2026/27, bringing more clubs in and evolving the model as we go.

You’ll lead the strategy and delivery (with agency support), working closely with players to help them build their personal brands and commercial prospects. That includes skills labs—personal brand, social, commercial skills and more—and selecting a small group for a WSL Football Ambassador Programme, where they’ll work more directly with the league.

Athlete Brand Marketing is the main focus, but you’ll also shape and deliver brand collaborations that boost the visibility and cultural relevance of our leagues, clubs and players—especially with younger fans in mind.

In summary, you’ll own day‑to‑day planning and delivery across clubs, agencies and partners—scaling and improving our Athlete Brand Marketing Programme, while creating collaborations that bring WSL Football to new audiences and build our connection with younger fans.

This role is advertised as a fixed‑term contract for up to a period of 12 months.

What will you be doing?

• Athlete Brand Marketing Programme – Strategy & Expansion: Lead the expansion of the Athlete Brand Marketing Programme pilot from 2026/27, including iteration of the delivery model and selection of clubs.
• Athlete Brand Marketing Programme – Delivery, Agency & Evaluation: Oversee end‑to‑end execution of the programme, including the management of skills lab sessions in club environments and day‑to‑day operational planning.
• Club Relationships & Partner Integration: Build incredibly strong working relationships with clubs, providing clear guidance, proactive communication and consistent support throughout the season.
• Brand Ambassadors: Lead the relationship, planning and marketing execution with WSL Brand Ambassadors, ensuring activity supports league priorities and all contracted appearances are delivered to a high standard.
• Brand Collaborations & New Audiences: Collaborate with the Head of Brand Marketing on the creation of new brand IP targeted at Gen Alpha, developing marketing plans with licensee partners to support commercialisation.
• Budget Management: Oversee management of the budget associated with your workstreams, tracking spend and ensuring activity is delivered efficiently and within agreed parameters.
• Coaching: This role does not currently have line management responsibilities, but it will have the support of the Marketing Team Coordinator and will therefore have elements of overseeing workload delivery and coaching.
• Other: Executes additional tasks as required to meet Women’s Super League Football’s changing priorities.

What are we looking for?

• Proven athlete brand marketing experience—hands‑on working with athletes to shape personal brand, content and commercial readiness, with clear examples of impact.
• Brilliant communication skills. Building rapport with players and club staff is a foundational skill required for success.
• Experience designing and scaling programmes—able to iterate a pilot model, select and engage clubs and build a long‑term roadmap aligned to business strategy.
• Strong delivery and operations capability—confident planning and running workshops in club environments, managing timelines, logistics and multiple workstreams.
• Excellent club and stakeholder relationship management—able to provide clear guidance and maintain proactive communication across clubs, players and internal teams.
• Proven agency management—able to brief and inspire agencies to deliver the best work of their careers and hit agreed KPIs.
• Experience integrating commercial, broadcast and social platform stakeholders into programmes—setting clear roles, shared objectives and smooth ways of working.
• Strong collaboration and influencing skills—comfortable working with senior stakeholders and representing the programme internally and externally.
• Analytical mindset—able to monitor performance, evaluate pilots, capture learnings and translate insight into improvements season‑to‑season.
• Budget and resource management—confident tracking of spend, prioritising activity and delivering efficiently within agreed parameters.
• Digitally confident and highly organised—strong Microsoft Office skills and practical use of AI‑enabled tools to improve productivity.
• Very flexible approach to working hours and travel. This role will involve extensive travel to clubs to deliver the programme.

Beneficial to have:

• Strong understanding of women’s football and the evolving fan and cultural landscape—able to apply that insight to collaborations that grow relevance with younger audiences.
• Experience working directly with football clubs and football talent—helpful for running in‑club delivery, building trust quickly and supporting ambassador activity.
• Experience collaborating with broadcasters, social platforms or major commercial partners—useful for integrating stakeholders into programmes.
• Exposure to licensing and IP development—able to support creation of new brand IP and work with licensee partners on marketing plans to drive commercialisation.
• Comfortable in a growth‑phase organisation—able to help shape new processes, test‑and‑learn approaches and pragmatic ways of working as programmes scale.

Living the values through our behaviours

• FOR THE LOVE OF THE WOMEN’S GAME – Every decision we make drives the growth, quality and impact of women’s football for future generations.
• GREATNESS NEVER SETTLES – We have a relentless drive to keep the women’s game growing and reaching for more.
• FIND A WAY TO WIN TOGETHER – We move as one—lifting each other and having each other’s backs.
• CHAMPION THE FEMALE ATHLETE, ON AND OFF THE PITCH – We celebrate and support female athletes, empowering them to shine in their football careers and beyond.
• PUT FANS IN THE FRONT ROW – Fans are the VIPs at the heart of our game.

Women’s Super League Football welcomes applications from everyone. Our office is based in Farringdon in Central London. The team works within a hybrid model whereby the expectation is to work from your contractual location for part of the week and, when required, from the office. The remaining days can be worked remotely.