Former England captain Steph Houghton has called for more teams to be added to the Women's Super League [WSL] and hopes the competition does not stagnate, believing there is more to do to grow the game.
Houghton was inducted into the WSL Hall of Fame on Monday following her 14-year career in the league, playing 178 games and scoring and 23 goals. Former Arsenal teammates Alex Scott and Gilly Flaherty were also added.
Referee Rebecca Welch, who was the first female official to take charge of a Premier League match, was also inducted.
Speaking ahead of her induction, Houghton commended the league's growth since its inception but believes there is room to develop by expanding to stretch the competitiveness of the "best league in the world."
"I think to have been a part of [the WSL] from then until obviously just last year, it really hit what we wanted to do as a league and as players is to be the best league in the world and I really do feel as though we have done that," the 36-year-old said.
"There's no other league that's more competitive than what we have and that's why the best players want to be here. So we've done a lot in a short time, and I still think we've got more to go. I think adding more teams will make the game even more exciting. It gives more clubs opportunity to play at the highest level against the best teams, but we've not been too bad."
Houghton also admitted she felt frustrated over the fact that more growth is still needed despite the advancements made already.
"I think we have a lot more to do, which is pleasing, but at the same time, I think sometimes I'm frustrated a little bit, I'm not going to lie because I don't want us to be stagnant. I don't want us to be kind of in that zone where everything's the same, and that's okay.
"We need to constantly be moving and sometimes it is good to have been in the game and now come out and to realise what players are feeling to kind of feed that information back."
Houghton, who represented Arsenal and Manchester City for a decade, shares a podcast with former Arsenal and England men's player Ian Wright, where the duo have addressed several challenging issues in the game.
The former Man City captain believes that it is essential for her to use her platform to continue to strive for the game to be better.
"I've got a lot of friends that are still playing. I've got ties to a lot of different clubs. But I think for me, I think the podcast is about probably highlighting the issues but also the strengths of what we have as well," she said.
"I think we need to be honest, we want things to be better, we want things to be moving on. We have to talk, we can't just make change and by going around it, doing it behind everybody's backs. We need to have that open conversation."
Fellow inductee Scott echoed her former teammate's comments, believing that there is still further need for the game to grow, but wanted to make sure the next generations understand what it took for the game to get to where it is now.
"I think it's great that we're still honouring those that push the game forward for our generation before we were even doing it now for the generation that, when they go into academies and when they're being signed at whatever age, they're going straight into a professional environment, which is incredible," Scott said.
"I think it's still that responsibility, and it is a responsibility still to know that women's football is an amazing place, but it's still not where we all want it to be. The generation now that even though, yes, it's professional, you do have the income and the environment around you, but we still want to make it even better and even slicker for the next generation coming through.
"That's on us as broadcasters to either show those stories or to write about it in a way that this younger generation care about it and understand the fight and the struggle and it wasn't always about selling out the Emirates and that being great.
"It took a long time for us to actually get here and to celebrate it, but I think it's in a way as well to make people understand that, look, yes, we went through that, and it's not us complaining about it, it's just understanding that this is why we're here and this is why we still need to continue to fight for even more and just not be satisfied where we're at at the moment."