Wikipedia - Indian Women's League

The Indian Women's League (abbreviated as the IWL) is the women's top tier professional football league in India. Founded in 2016, currently a total of 7 teams from across the country participate in the league.

The competition was planned since 2014 and got established in 2016, with the first season starting from October 2016 in Cuttack, Odisha. The league was launched as India's first professional football league for women with the aim to increase the player pool for India national team. Since 2019–20, the clubs that become champions are granted an opportunity to play in the AFC Women's Club Championship, the top tier women's club football competition in Asia.

Until now four clubs have been crowned as champions: Eastern Sporting Union, Rising Students' Club, Sethu and Gokulam Kerala. Out of them Gokulam Kerala has lifted the championship trophy thrice.

History

Origin

Since 1991, the top women's football tournament in India has been the Senior Women's National Football Championship, organised by the All India Football Federation. The tournament served as a female equivalent of the Santosh Trophy, with regional teams competing against each other. There had not been an organized national football league for women clubs; however, the first women's football league was set up by the Indian Football Association (West Bengal) in Kolkata as Calcutta Women's Football League in 1993. Regional leagues were also organised in Mumbai and Goa in 1998 and 1999 respectively by the respective state associations. But unfortunately due to lack of support, these amateur leagues were postponed for a long period or completely dissolved after a short run.

Foundation

In 2014, after the success of the India women's team, mainly in the SAFF Women's Championship, a push to start a women's football league, along the lines of recently inaugurated and successful Indian Super League, happened. Clubs such as Pune and Bengaluru expressed interests in joining a national women's league. It was around this time that AIFF started plans to create a league for women along the lines of ISL.

On 21 April 2016, the AIFF president Praful Patel said that Indian Women's League would kick-off in October with six teams to be decided, and goal to expand to eight teams by 2017. Over two months later, on 5 July, AIFF organized a workshop to discuss the India women's national team and proposed women's football league. Five Indian Super League sides – Delhi Dynamos, Chennaiyin, Kerala Blasters, Pune City and Atletico de Kolkata, and three I-League sides – Bengaluru, Aizawl and Mumbai, attended the workshop. It was announced that the league would feature eight teams and two other spots would be determined through a preliminary round. The primary objective of the tournament was to capitalise the potential of Indian women and prepare them for the national team, so as to eventually qualify for AFC Women's Asian Cup and FIFA Women's World Cup.

The preliminary round of the inaugural season was played from 17–26 October in Cuttack by 8 teams qualifying through a national qualifier of 20 teams across the country, and the main round of six teams took place the following year from 28 January to 14 February in New Delhi. The six teams to participate in the main round were Aizawl, Alakhpura, Eastern Sporting Union, Jeppiaar Institute, Pune City and Rising Students' Club, and top four teams are decided to play the semi-finals after a single round-robin stage. Aizawl and Pune City were the only clubs from both the I-League and the ISL to field their women teams in the competition and had achieved direct qualification in main round. Eastern Sporting Union defeated Rising Students' Club by 3–0 in the final and became the inaugural champion of IWL.

Expansion and improvements (2017–present)

The following season the AIFF extended their partnership with Hero MotoCorp and rebranded the league as the Hero IWL. The organisers also allowed the signing of foreign players in the main round but restricted to only two foreigners in matchday squad, while only one could be named in the starting eleven. This season no other ISL or I-League club except Gokulam Kerala participated in the competition, therefore six teams were promoted from the preliminary round to the main round. Gokulam Kerala became the first Indian club to sign a foreigner, as they included two Ugandan internationals – Fazila Ikwaput and Rita Nabbosa. The only other club to sign foreigners was Sethu: Bangladeshi internationals Sabina Khatun and Krishna Rani Sarkar, and British midfielder Tanvie Hans. The preliminary round was played at Kolhapur from 25 November to 8 December 2017 among thirteen teams, and the main round was held from 26 March to 14 April 2018 in Shillong. Last season's finalists met once again in the finals, but Rising Students' Club beat Eastern Sporting Union this time in the penalties to win the league. From 2018–19 season, the qualification of teams was decided based on the results in respective state leagues, and the number of teams was also doubled to twelve. The format was also changed, and teams were divided into two groups to decide the top two from each group playing in the semi-finals. The season culminated with Sethu becoming the champion of IWL. Since 2019, AFC and FIFA jointly organised AFC Women's Club Championship, and India decided to participate in the second edition of the competition to be held in 2021 AFC Women's Club Championship. Therefore, the winner of the 2019–20 season was decided to be the probable representative of India in the continental tournament. At the final of the tournament, Gokulam Kerala became the champion of the season after remaining unbeaten throughout the tournament, thus became the first club to win the top-tier league of both men's and women's, and also the first Indian team to play in AFC Women's Club Championship. In 2021–22, the AIFF changed the format to a single round-robin tournament and the team that would remain at the top of the table at the end, would be declared as the champions. Gokulam Kerala became the first club to defend their league title by finishing the season unbeaten, hence qualifying for the continental tournament for the second time in a row. In 2022–23, the league got expanded to 16 teams, with the top 8 of previous season to be eligible for direct qualification to the next season, irrespective of their results in the state leagues.

印度联赛女子(Indian Women's League)是印度国内最高级别的女子足球联赛,它成立于2000年,旨在为印度女子足球运动员提供一个更专业、更高水平的比赛平台。该联赛由印度足球协会(AIFF)主办,每年分为两个赛季,每个赛季共有10支球队参加。

印度联赛女子是印度女子足球队参加的主要联赛,每年都有大量的优秀球员从该联赛中涌现出来,为印度女子足球队输送了大量的优秀球员。该联赛的球队分布在全国各地,其中一些球队是当地著名的足球俱乐部的女队,而另一些球队则是独立运营的女足俱乐部。

印度联赛女子以其高水平的比赛和严格的比赛规则而闻名。比赛采用11人制,与男子比赛相同。每支球队通常有18名球员,其中包括3名替补。每场比赛通常有2名裁判员,其中1名为主裁判,另1名为边裁。此外,该联赛还设有U-19和U-17女子足球联赛,以及女子足球杯赛等赛事。

印度联赛女子已经成为印度国内最受欢迎的体育赛事之一,吸引了越来越多的观众和赞助商的关注。该联赛的成功也促进了印度女子足球的发展和提高,为印度足球的崛起做出了重要贡献。