Putellas Has Changed How London City Lionesses Think, Says Chief Executive

Alexia Putellas has changed the mindset at London City Lionesses, according to chief executive Martin Semmens, and the club can now talk about really winning. The Guardian spoke to Semmens ahead of the club's next big home game.

Putellas is a Spain midfielder and a World Cup winner with her country. She also won the Champions League, the top club prize in Europe, four times with Barcelona, where she spent 14 years. She won the women's Ballon d'Or, the individual award for the best player in the women's game, for a third time on Monday evening in London.

London City Lionesses play in the Women's Super League, England's top women's division. They are third in the table as of 30 October 2026. Two and a half years ago they finished eighth in the second tier. The club is independent and owned by businesswoman Michele Kang.

The club announced Putellas's signing on 8 July 2026, calling it a landmark moment. Semmens says the impact has reached well beyond the pitch. He said the club's Instagram page recorded 34 million hits between the Ballon d'Or win and Thursday afternoon. Putellas herself has 3.7 million followers on Instagram.

Money is part of the story too. The club says its shirt-front sponsorship with Nike is the biggest in the women's game, worth more than $4m (£3m) a year. The club also reported an operating loss, meaning its spending ran well ahead of its income, of more than ten times its revenue in 2024-25. That was the season they won promotion as second-tier champions. Semmens, who was previously chief executive of Southampton, is working through that gap as the club grows.

The next test is on the pitch. Manchester City visit on Sunday 1 November, with kick-off at 12pm at the CopperJax Community Stadium on Hayes Lane in Bromley. Between the two clubs, seven players are among the top 30 in this year's Ballon d'Or rankings. For fans heading to the ground, the club's fan guide says the Broomfields venue opens at 10am on matchday.

For a club that was in the second tier only two and a half years ago, this is a big week. A win over one of the strongest squads in the country would show what the new mindset can do. A defeat would not undo the progress, but it would make the question of what the club can achieve harder to ignore. Either way, it will be a lot of people in one place for one afternoon in south-east London.