Wellington Phoenix Women's Football Club is a New Zealand professional women's football club based in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

, New Zealand. The Phoenix competes in the Australian premier women's soccer competition

A-League Women A-League Women (known as the Liberty A-League for sponsorship reasons), formerly the W-League, is the top-division women's soccer league in Australia. The W-League was established in 2008 by Football Australia (then known as Football Federatio ...

, under licence from

Football Federation Australia Football Australia is the governing body of soccer, futsal, and beach soccer within Australia, headquartered in Sydney. Although the first governing body of the sport was founded in 1911, Football Australia in its current form was only esta ...

and

New Zealand Football New Zealand Football is the governing body for the sport of association football in New Zealand. It oversees the seven New Zealand Football federations, as well as the New Zealand national football team (nicknamed the "All Whites"), the nationa ...

History

Establishment

For several years, there have been talks concerning the creation of a professional women's football team in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

so as to boost the level of women's football in New Zealand and

Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a region, geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern Hemisphere, Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of ...

with the cost of traveling to away games a major barrier. There were no professional clubs in New Zealand and the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

only featured amateur teams. The talks intensified after New Zealand won the rights to co-host the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup and the W-League plans to add three more expansion teams by that time. In September 2021, Phoenix announced they were one of the clubs in consideration under the W-League expansion and later confirmed creating a women's team.

Inaugural season

On 11 October 2021, Wellington Phoenix announced Gemma Lewis would be the inaugural head coach of the side. They also announced that Natalie Lawrence would be her assistant for the 2021–22 season, making them one of two all-female coaching staffs in the A-League Women. A few days later, they announced former

Perth Glory Perth Glory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Perth, Western Australia. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues. Founded in 19 ...

keeper and

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

players’ player of the year, Lily Alfeld as the clubs inaugural signing. Alfeld was later announced as the club's inaugural captain. Phoenix played their home games at

Wollongong Wollongong ( ), colloquially referred to as The Gong, is a city located in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. The name is believed to originate from the Dharawal language, meaning either 'five islands/clouds', 'ground near wate ...

with the hope of returning to their home stadium in Wellington later in the season. Wellington Phoenix started their debut season in the A-League in the 2021–22 season with a 0–0 draw against

Western Sydney Wanderers Western Sydney Wanderers Football Club (colloquially known as Western Sydney, or simply as Wanderers) is an Australian professional soccer club based in the Western Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier ...

at the Wollongong Showgrounds. Ava Pritchard scored the club's first goal in their second game of the season, in a 1–5 loss to

Newcastle Jets Newcastle United Jets Football Club, commonly known as Newcastle Jets, is an Australian professional soccer club based in Newcastle, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier competition, the A-League, under licence from The Australia ...

. On 11 February 2022, the Phoenix achieved their first win in A-League Women history in a 3–0 away win against

Canberra United Canberra United Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in the southern Canberra suburb of Wanniassa, Australian Capital Territory. Founded in 2008 by Capital Football, the club was an inaugural member of the W-League and t ...

Players

First-team squad

Management team

Technical staff

Captaincy history

References

External links

* {{Sport in Wellington Wellington Phoenix (W-League) Association football clubs established in 2021 Expatriated football clubs Sport in Wellington City 2021 establishments in New Zealand Phoenix clubs (association football) Wellington Phoenix FC A-League Women teams Women's association football clubs in New Zealand