- LCFC Women have joined the Leicester City family, becoming a full-time women’s team competing in the FA Women’s Championship
- Jonathan Morgan says he is delighted to be joining forces with the Football Club and looks forward to the season ahead
- The move demonstrates Leicester City’s commitment to the development of women’s football, Morgan adds
- Head of Women & Girls Football Russ Fraser is confident the team can push on quickly and is happy with the squad put together ahead of the new season
The Foxes will compete in the FA Women’s Championship during the upcoming campaign as they look to compete for promotion into the Barclays FA Women’s Super League – the game’s top tier.
Jonathan, formerly the manager of LCFC Women since 2014, believes that Saturday's announcement is the first step of a process inspired by the Club’s commitment to the development of the women’s game in Leicester.
“It’s a brilliant feeling,” he said, speaking to LCFC TV. "It’s something we’ve been working hard towards behind the scenes for the last few years.
“To finally get the opportunity to come in-house and to be a full-time setup within Leicester City – my home city, home club – I can’t ask for much more as a football coach to be honest.
“There was a lot of work between us and Leicester City and we always had the plan that we wanted to build a sustainable core group of girls.”
Morgan says the new level of professionalism will benefit more than just the LCFC Women first-team, and he believes it could inspire more participation among females of all ages in the region.
“There has been a lot of commitment shown to developing the women’s setup, both the girls and the women’s game. This is now the cherry on the cake really to show that we are officially one setup, one club.
“It's a fantastic opportunity, not just for the coaches, not only for the first-team girls, but all the young females around the Leicestershire area, to know that they’ve got a big Premier League club that is showing support and wanting to push them to the next level.”
While there are several new faces joining up with the team for their first pre-season at Leicester City, many Leicestershire-born players from LCFC Women are moving over and taking their first steps into professional football.
“It’s a big step forward and there are going to be challenges,” Jonathan added. “I think straight away it’s making sure you keep that environment professional.
“We’ve set some very big goals this season and we’re going to try our best to make sure we fulfil them.
“From my point of view, as a coach, it’s just making sure that every session is the best and highest standard that I can possibly provide with the coaching team, so that together we can then get the best out of the girls on matchday and fundamentally reach our final goal.
“Now people know we are going to be full-time, I think there will be a lot of pressure on ourselves, but we’re cautiously optimistic in what we can achieve this year.”
Russ, Leicester City’s newly appointed Head of Women & Girls Football, has a proven track record of establishing teams in the Women’s Super League, famously taking West Ham United Women from the third tier to the top division, as well as reaching the Women’s FA Cup Final in 2018/19.
“The support we’ve had from (Leicester City CEO) Susan [Whelan] and the Board has been outstanding,” he told LCFC TV. “The ambition of the Club is really positive, and they want to take things in the right way.
“It’s familiar territory [for me] in some ways, having worked at West Ham, where we went from being amateur to professional relatively quickly and then also with Reading, getting promoted from WSL 2 as it was then, to WSL 1. It’s almost like a start-up in some ways.
“The long-term plans of the Club for developing players is very much apparent and that’s what we want to do. We want to make sure those players are coming through from our academy and into the first team.”
The appointment of an experienced figure within the women’s game is an indication of the Club’s desire to move the team forward and to build upon the broader development of the game in Leicester.
Russ continued: “We have an ambitious plan and want to compete for promotion as soon as we can. WSL is our target – not just getting there, but establishing ourselves there to make a long-term impact on the women’s game.
“I think we’ve recruited a very good squad, retaining some very good talent from last year. We’ve also brought in a lot of players who are going to add to that squad, bring experience and depth and obviously talent, and I’m looking forward to it as a really positive season.
“Some of them are very young, but there is a lot of potential and we’ve brought in more experienced players that will add balance. That’s the one thing we’ve really got.
“We’ve got a lot of cover in positions, so I’m genuinely excited to see this team on the pitch. Just watching training sessions, you can already see what they have to offer.”