Lia Walti Returns to WSL: A Footballer's Journey from Juventus to Brighton
Lia Walti did not leave Juventus for a new adventure. She left because, in her words, she stopped feeling valued as a footballer.
After just one season in Italy, the Switzerland captain has come back to the Women’s Super League, signing for Brighton and stepping straight back into the environment she believes still sets the standard for the women’s game.
“I missed the feeling of being valued as a footballer, feeling like we're getting the full support we needed,” Walti told BBC Sport. The contrast she draws between England and much of the rest of Europe is stark. “It's more that it's just the reality that football in England, in the WSL, has a standard which is not comparable with any other league.”
From Arsenal glory to Italian frustration
Walti knows what a high-performance environment looks like. Across seven years at Arsenal she made 183 appearances, anchored the midfield and helped deliver four major trophies, including the Champions League and WSL titles. She lived through the rise of the league, the swelling crowds, the shift to genuine professionalism.
That is why, when she moved to Juventus last summer seeking a fresh challenge, the reality hit hard.
She describes the differences in professionalism as “extreme”. Training structures, facilities, the day-to-day detail that underpins elite sport – all, she says, sat a long way behind what she had left in London.
“We have good structures, good fields where we can play our games,” she said of England. Italy, by comparison, felt empty – literally. “We had absolutely no fan culture – not just at Juve – in general in Italy. In Italy, it was just [empty]. Every game felt a bit like that. I missed the feeling I had before when I was playing football.”
For a player who had helped build something in England, going back to near silence in the stands cut deep. She had grown used to full or near-full grounds, even when the stadiums were small, and to the buzz that comes with a fanbase invested in your team.
“When you have been part of that growth in England, with the fan cultures, the full stadiums – even stadiums that are really small, they are exciting to play in,” she said. That simply was not her experience in Serie A.
‘You have to bring the game to the people’
Walti’s criticism is not a swipe at Italy alone. It is a wider warning about how easily women’s football can stall without serious backing.
“I think you have to bring the game to the people. You kind of have to force people to watch it. I felt that that's how it maybe started in England,” she said. Get it on TV. Get it in front of people. Make it unavoidable.
She believes too many leagues are failing at that basic step. “In Italy, and in a lot of other countries, I think they have bad coverage. It's not shown [on TV] at all, or if it's shown, from where they film it, is really poor. It affects the way you watch a game. You don't really see the speed, the tactics or anything and you don't enjoy watching the game.”
The WSL, she argues, has understood that. Big stadiums, smart production, proper camera angles. “I think people enjoy watching it more.”
But the problems she lists do not stop with broadcast quality. They start on the grass.
“The biggest lacking starts with pitch quality. In a lot of countries, you play either on the worst artificial pitches or the worst natural grasses,” she said. “Even if a Premier League team were to play there, it would probably look rubbish because it's just not possible to play nice football on it.”
She does not spare her homeland. “All of the other leagues, where do you even start? It's so hard. We have the same [issues] in Switzerland.”
The central point is blunt: someone has to spend money before the product improves. “You have to do the first step – invest money for all those things before you get something back. I think a lot of countries don't have that money or patience.”
A generation that changed England – and what gets lost elsewhere
Walti, now 33, has more than 100 caps for Switzerland and captained her country at Euro 2025 on home soil. Her career has run alongside the explosion of the women’s game in England. She has seen the before and after.
“We used to not have good conditions. It wasn't professional. Our first salaries were not enough to live from,” she recalled. The shift since then has been dramatic. Full-time set-ups. Serious investment. Crowds that treat the women’s team as central to the club’s identity, not an add-on.
That progress brings its own frustration when she looks around Europe. “Now, seeing the growth in England and being with players who try to push the game in their own countries, it makes you feel frustrated to still see the reality. You forget sometimes, when you're in your own bubble, that this is not the norm. You're just one of the lucky ones who can experience it.”
The cost of that disparity, she believes, is measured in wasted potential. “A lot of talent in women's football gets lost because they are in bad environments where nobody sees them or they don't have the chance to reach their potential.”
She tried to push for change in Italy. It left her drained. “I try to make an impact and I think that was really hard in Italy because I felt like when we spoke up, nothing happened, and that was frustrating.”
Why Brighton, and why now
So when she looked at her options with a year left on her Juventus deal, she knew exactly what she wanted. Or, as she put it, what she “probably wanted, or didn't want”.
Brighton, with their aggressive investment in the women’s side, quickly emerged as the right fit. In 2021, the club moved the women’s team into the American Express Elite Football Performance Centre after an £8.5m upgrade. This April they unveiled plans for Europe’s first purpose-built women’s football stadium, a £75-80m project that would place them at the forefront of infrastructure in the game.
On the pitch, Brighton reached the Women’s FA Cup final for the first time in May and have recruited heavily under head coach Dario Vidosic. The target is unapologetic: break into the WSL’s top three.
For Walti, all of that mattered. But so did the reputation Brighton had among players already in the league.
“I had a pretty big trust in Brighton before we had the conversations because I had been in the league and seen what the club was doing,” she said. “I've heard from other players about the club investing a lot and I only heard really positive things. There is no better feedback than from other players.”
Once she arrived, those impressions were confirmed. “It proved to me that this is the right place – that cares about women's football, that invests in women's football, and who has the right people in place.”
She calls herself “passionate” about pushing for change because she knows how privileged she has been to live the WSL experience. Brighton, with their money on the table and a clear plan, now offer her a platform to compete at the top level again and to keep arguing for the standards she believes should be universal.
The question is whether the rest of Europe is willing – or able – to catch up.
