What league will City Next Gen play in?

In partnership with

Manchester City F.C.

·25. August 2025

What league will City Next Gen play in?

Manchester City have today announced the launch of our Women’s Next Gen Under-21s side.

In what’s a restructuring of our previous Academy side ahead of the 2025/26 campaign, former Blues and England midfielder Izzy Christiansen has become the team’s Head Coach following the appointment of Hannah Dingley as Girls’ Head of Academy in May 2025.

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It marks an exciting new era for our youth system as young talent at the Club will continue to be provided excellent football and education programmes and the use of our world-class facilities.

City Next Gen will play in the Women’s Professional Girls Academy (PGA) U21 division and will open our season with a tantalising trip to Manchester United on Wednesday 27 August – but how will the league work?

Find out more below…

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PGA UNDER-21S DIVISION

The first phase of the PGA U21 League will be split into northern and southern sections with City Next Gen placed into the northern division.

There we will play nine matches in a 10-team league, with every side playing each other once between August and December.

Following the conclusion of all fixtures, the top four sides in both the northern and southern sections will be placed into national Group 1.

The remaining teams from both the northern and southern sections who missed out on the respective top fours will then be put into Group 2.

Once the second phase nationalised groups have been decided, the teams will play each other twice to determine who finishes at each division’s summit.