Alongside their league campaigns, clubs across the women's game chase silverware in knockout cup competitions. But the cups come with their own quirks — who enters and when, how a tie is settled when the scores are level, and the rules that decide which players are even allowed to take part. Here's the whole picture in plain English.
There are two main cup competitions for the top of the women's pyramid: the Women's FA Cup, the historic open knockout that runs all the way down the pyramid and finishes at Wembley; and the Subway Players Cup, the secondary competition for WSL and WSL 2 clubs, freshly reformatted for the 2026/27 season.
The official rule: The Women's FA Cup is a single-elimination knockout open to clubs throughout the pyramid. Clubs are given exemptions to later rounds based on their tier, so higher-ranked clubs enter later. WSL clubs enter at the fourth round proper; WSL 2 clubs at the third round proper; tier-three clubs at the first round proper; and clubs below that work through a series of qualifying rounds from late August onwards.
In plain English: Not everyone starts together. The lower down the pyramid a club is, the earlier it has to begin, fighting through qualifying rounds for the chance to reach the "proper" rounds. The big WSL clubs don't join until the fourth round in mid-January — by which point a grassroots side might already have won four or five ties just to still be standing. WSL 2 clubs come in one round earlier. It's the same idea as the men's FA Cup: the giants enter late, and the magic comes from a small club occasionally drawing — or beating — one of them.
The official rule: From the first round proper, ties are decided on the day with no replays. If the scores are level after 90 minutes, two 15-minute periods of extra time are played. If still level after 120 minutes, the tie is decided by a penalty shootout.
In plain English: League football can end in a draw; a cup tie can't — somebody has to go through. So if it's level at full time, you get extra time: two short halves, 30 minutes in total. Still level after that, and it goes to penalties — the shootout you'll have seen decide finals and semi-finals. There are no replays in the modern competition, so every tie is settled in one afternoon. The final itself is played at Wembley Stadium, usually in mid-to-late May, in front of record crowds.
The official rule: The secondary competition for WSL and WSL 2 clubs, renamed and reformatted for 2026/27. All 23 WSL and WSL 2 clubs take part except the three qualified for the UEFA Women's Champions League. It runs in two stages: a Swiss-style league phase in which each club plays six regionalised fixtures feeding into a single combined table, followed by a knockout phase for the top eight clubs — seeded quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final.
In plain English: This is the "other" cup, and it looks quite different from a normal knockout. Instead of straight rounds, every club first plays six games (three home, three away) against nearby opponents, and all those results drop into one big table. The top eight then go into a traditional knockout to decide the winner. The three clubs busy with European football sit it out to protect their fixture schedule. One quirk worth knowing: in the league phase there's no extra time — a game level after 90 minutes goes straight to penalties, and the shootout winner takes two points, the loser one.
The official rule: If a club cannot fulfil a fixture, the matter is referred to the competition organisers, who decide the outcome — which may include rescheduling the tie or, where a club is at fault, removing it and awarding the tie to its opponents. A club that fields an ineligible player can also be removed from the competition and fined, with the tie typically awarded to the opponent.
In plain English: Cups don't just abandon a game and forget it — the organisers step in. If a club genuinely can't play, the tie might be moved; but if the club is at fault, it can be thrown out and its opponent handed the place in the next round. The same applies if a team plays someone they shouldn't have (see below): win or lose on the pitch, they can still lose the tie in the committee room.
The official rule: Players must be properly registered and eligible under each competition's own rules. A player who has appeared for one club in a particular cup competition during a season is generally "cup-tied" to that club for that competition that season — so if they move to another club, they usually cannot play for the new club in the same competition in the same season.
In plain English: "Cup-tied" is the phrase to know. Once you've played a cup game for one club this season, that competition is locked to that club for you. Transfer in January and you can play for your new club in the league straight away — but not in that same cup, because you've already turned out in it for someone else. It stops a club signing a player mid-run purely to parachute them into a cup tie. Beyond that, the usual registration and eligibility rules apply, and the exact wording changes a little season to season — so the competition's official rules are always the final word.
Rules and formats are set by the governing bodies and can change each season. For the full detail, go straight to The FA's Women's Competitions pages (for the Women's FA Cup) and WSL Football (for the Subway Players Cup and the WSL).
That's the cup toolkit. Next time a lower-league side dumps a WSL club out in January, or a game you're watching rolls into penalties, you'll know exactly how — and why — it's happening. (Information reflects the 2026/27 season, last checked July 2026.)