The deal with Subway is reportedly worth £1 million. (Credit: WPLL)

Women’s Professional Leagues (WPLL), the recently formed body that oversees English women’s soccer, has today announced a new deal with international sandwich chain Subway to title sponsor the Women’s League Cup competition.

Through a multi-year agreement, the cup competition will be renamed as Subway Women’s League Cup for the remainder of this season’s edition, currently at the quarter-final stage.

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The deal is reportedly worth £1 million ($1.3 million).

The start of the 2024-25 Women’s League Cup marked the first time since the competition’s inception that it was played without a title sponsor, with WPLL taking control from the English Football Association.

Tyre brand Continental was the previous title partner, holding rights for over a decade since its creation in 2011.

Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester City will enter the Women’s League Cup at the quarter-final stage, having been exempt from the group stage due to their participation in the UEFA Women’s Champions League. This season’s League Cup will conclude in March.

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Nikki Doucet, CEO of WPLL, said: “We are thrilled that Subway has come on board as title partner for the Women’s League Cup as we continue on our journey to build the most distinctive, competitive, and entertaining women’s football club cup competition in the world.

"We need partners like Subway who believe in our vision to transform the game and are committed to developing opportunities both on and off the pitch for women in football.”

Since assuming the governance of women’s soccer in England earlier this year, WPLL has secured several major deals for the game domestically.

In September, global bank Barclays extended its title sponsorship of the top-tier Women’s Super League (WSL) for another three years in what WPLL called “the biggest deal in women’s domestic football history.”

The renewed deal is reportedly worth £15 million per season, which sees Barclays doubling its financial investment in the league.

This was the first commercial agreement unveiled since WPLL took over from the FA in mid-August.

In late October, WPLL agreed “the most significant broadcast partnership ever for women’s football in the UK & Ireland” after concluding a new rights agreement with pay-TV giant Sky and the BBC public-service broadcaster for the WSL.

The new long-term contract, which will begin from the 2025-26 season and run through 2029-30, is understood to be worth £65 million over the five seasons. With production costs added, the total deal is likely to exceed £100 million.