Michele Kang: 'I'm very excited to share the progress we've made this year'

When Michele Kang speaks, the football world listens.

On Thursday [27 June], the Washington Spirit, Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, and London City Lionesses owner stepped into London's Landmark Hotel and announced a series of moves befitting of the venue and her desire to assemble the world's preeminent sports organisation.

"I'm very excited to meet with you today and share some of the progress we have been making," Kang told a room of media and industry leaders. "This is my second press conference, the first was with Lyon and I haven’t done one with the Spirit yet."

In the following minutes, the American shortened London City's wish-list by four items.

Kosovare Asllani, one of the greatest players of her generation and a 178-cap international for Sweden, was unveiled as our first new arrival of the summer.

Next, Coupe de France-winning tactician Jocelyn Prêcheur walked into the room, agreeing to become our new head coach.

Kang also announced our relocation to Bromley's Hayes Lane Stadium and acquisition of a 23-acre training facility in Aylesford, Kent.

In this article, the first part of a londoncitylionesses.com series, hear directly from Kang.

Opening Remarks:

I acquired the team back in December as a unique independent women’s team in England, which made it easier for me to focus on women’s sports and what can be done to professionalise it. 

In the last six months, we’ve worked very hard to reposition the team and to improve our playing and training facilities so that our players can really fulfil their dreams and be the best they can be.

There were many fronts that we had to work on – from the player roster, to our head coach, training centre, and stadium. I’m very happy to share our progress in those areas with you today.

For us to become the best female football team in England, it was very clear to us that we needed the best players and we worked very hard to recruit the top players who would help us earn promotion, stay up, and aspire for trophies at the WSL level. And I’m very happy to announce that we have signed one of the top female players ever, Kosovare Asllani.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am that she chose to join – it was a very, very difficult decision, I know that. She believes in the project and the vision we have for London City Lionesses and women’s football. Not only does she want to help London City win promotion, but she also wants to work on improving and developing women’s football in all aspects.

When asked about London City's playing and training facilities, Kang answered:

When asking players like Asllani to join us, we need our playing and training environment to be the top grade, not just top amongst women, top across professional sport. Period. We worked very hard over the last couple of months and have acquired the training centre we had rented previously. We’re going through some initial renovations to make it more workable, but the final product will probably be next year. 

We engaged Three Architects, who designed Tottenham Hotspur’s training centre. I did my research and they have the best training centre in my opinion. They’ve been working with us to design the state of the art training centre for women’s teams, with the same concept for London City, the Spirit, and Lyon. 

We’ve been playing in Dartford at Princes Park, which I’m told isn’t in London. Clearly, London City needs to play in London and be close to our fans, but – most importantly – we need to play at a professional-grade stadium.

We cannot have our top athletes play at a less-than-acceptable stadium. It was very important for us to secure a stadium where our players feel confident in the quality of the pitch. With that in mind, we’re very pleased to announce that we’re partnering with Bromley FC and will be playing our games there, starting this fall. 

For more information about our relocation to the London Borough of Bromley, please click here.

When introducing Jocelyn Prêcheur, Kang commented:

Aslanni is a core part of roster, but we also have thirteen players remaining from last season, and have agreed to sign seven new players. We are in conversations with three or four more players, so there will be a lot of new players coming in to fulfil the vision we’re talking about.

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering about the missing piece – who is going to be the leader and head coach?

I am very excited to announce to you that we have one of the best coaches in women’s football, Jocelyn Precheur, who coached PSG last season, taking them to the Champions League semi-finals and winning the French Cup. His leadership capabilities are proven and I’m incredibly grateful for him to accept this project and work with us to lead the team to where we want to take it.