The 2026/27 Primera Federación Femenina season will feature six reserve teams among its fourteen participants.
Those six sides will occupy almost half of the second tier. All of them will be able to win the title, but none will be allowed to earn promotion to Liga F while their senior team remains there.
The table will therefore bring together teams with two different objectives. Eight clubs will compete for the two promotion places. The other six will use the division to measure the development of their young players against senior opponents, some of them built specifically to return to the top flight or reach it for the first time.
Last season showed the consequences. Barcelona B finished first and won their third title in four years, but it was second-placed Alavés who earned automatic promotion. Reserve teams were also ineligible for the play-offs, so the play-off places passed down to the next eligible clubs.
That was not a quirk of the regulations. The competition rules allow a reserve team to be crowned champion, but establish that the right to promotion and any potential play-off place pass to the next eligible side when its senior team already competes in Liga F.
The clubs waiting in Segunda Federación
The presence of six reserve teams takes on another dimension when looking at the division below.
Segunda Federación will feature 42 teams divided into three groups. Betis, Real Oviedo, Europa and AEM will be there after relegation, alongside growing projects such as As Celtas and clubs with a long history in the women’s game such as Zaragoza CFF and Málaga.
Their situations are very different.
Betis are trying to rebuild a team that was playing in Liga F little more than a year ago. As Celtas are still taking the first steps of a women’s section created in 2024 that earned promotion to the national tiers in its debut season. Others have spent several campaigns pursuing the promotion that would move them closer to the top flight.
All of them are competing for one of the fourteen places that currently exist in Primera Federación.
Meanwhile, the reserve teams continue to progress. Athletic B and Real Sociedad B won promotion last season and increased the number of second teams in the division from four to six.
Their arrival reflects the work carried out by clubs capable of sustaining a development pathway all the way to the threshold of Liga F. It also changes a competition whose participants no longer share the same sporting reward.
The division is expected to accommodate the development of the best young players, the ambitions of relegated clubs and the growth of teams arriving from below. The single-group format has raised the standard, but its fourteen places no longer reflect the number of clubs aspiring to compete there.
The answer will arrive in 2027
The 2026/27 season will be the last under the current format.
In 2027/28, Primera Federación will expand from fourteen to 28 participants and be divided into two groups. To complete the new structure, the top five teams from each Segunda Federación group will be promoted during the coming season: fifteen clubs in total.
FemGol has already explained how that transition will work, with only one relegation from Primera Federación and fifteen promotions from Segunda. For this debate, what matters is the outcome.
Clubs that have invested in their academies for years will retain a demanding competition in which to prepare young players. At the same time, fifteen teams will be promoted from Segunda Federación and move to within one step of Liga F.
Some of them could also be reserve teams. The reform is not designed to reduce their number, but to change the scale of the division: six B teams currently occupy almost half of the available places; in a 28-team competition, their presence will have a very different effect.
Expansion does not automatically guarantee a better format.
The single group places every promotion contender in the same table and forces them to compete against the strongest opponents. Dividing the competition could create differences in quality between the two groups, remove some attractive fixtures and make the promotion race more complex. It will also be necessary to see whether every promoted club can meet the financial demands of the division.
But the restructuring responds to a reality that is already visible before the season begins. Primera Federación will contain six reserve teams among fourteen participants while dozens of clubs attempt to move up from the level below.
In 2027/28, there will still be reserve teams, relegated clubs and emerging projects.
The difference is that they will no longer all have to fit into a fourteen-team league.
