Indian Women's League

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This article is about the top division in women's Indian football. For top division in Indian men's football, see Indian Super League.

Indian Women's League
AFC Women's Champions League
Current championsOdisha (1st title)
Most championshipsGokulam Kerala (3 titles)
TV partnersIndian Football (YouTube)
Websitethe-aiff.com
Current: 2023–24

The Indian Women's League (abbreviated as the IWL) is the women's top tier professional football league in India.[1] Founded in 2016, currently a total of 7 teams from across the country participate in the league.[2]

The competition was planned since 2014 and got established in 2016, with the first season starting from October 2016 in Cuttack, Odisha.[3] 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.[4]

History

Origin

Since 1991, the top women's football tournament in India has been the

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.[6]
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

Pune and Bengaluru expressed interests in joining a national women's league.[7] It was around this time that AIFF started plans to create a league for women along the lines of ISL.[8]

On 21 April 2016, the AIFF president

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.[9] 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.[10]

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.[11] 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.[12]

Expansion and improvements (2017–present)

The

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.[21]

Format

The competition format had varied over the initial seasons, but mostly played as a knock-out tournament where four teams qualified for the single-legged semi-finals through the group stage played in single

state leagues, along with previous season's top four teams, receive direct qualification to the league.[21][22] The interested clubs from the regions without any state tournament are to register for the IWL Qualifiers and earn a spot in the main round by winning the qualifier.[22]

Clubs

Current clubs

Further information: 2023–24 Indian Women's League
East Bengal
Kickstart
Bhubaneshwar
Bhubaneshwar
Bhubaneswar teams: Odisha Sports Odisha
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Locations of the Indian Women's League teams