England goalkeeper Mary Earps is set to leave Manchester United on a free transfer to join Paris Saint-Germain this summer, after almost two years of unsuccessful contract negotiations, but she’s not the only one. Sources have confirmed to ESPN that Nikita Parris, Lucía García, and captain Katie Zelem are also expected to depart the Red Devils, taking with them the spine of Marc Skinner’s team.
This follows a week of bad PR for the club where new minority owner Jim Ratcliffe admitted that plans for developing the women’s team were “TBC” and news that the women’s team are to be turfed out of their home at Carrington to make way for the men while they have their own facilities overhauled. Uprooting both teams, rather than just moving the men directly to the portable facilities during the work.
United are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, club in the world. But if they don’t start taking their women’s team seriously, it could be the beginning of a downward spiral.
With a poorly treated women’s side in some form since the 1970s, United created an official partnership with them in 2001 but then disbanded it in 2005, shortly after the Glazer takeover, saying it was never their “intention to become involved in women’s football at a high level” and that…
