After the I-League, which is meant for their male counterparts, Indian women footballers will get to show their skills in the first-ever full-fledged professional soccer league for women in India. The All India Football Federation (AIFF), today announced the inaugural Indian Women’s League (IWL) in New Delhi. The first edition of the league comprising six teams will held at the Ambedkar Stadium in New Delhi between January 28 and February 14.
The participating sides include Jeppiar (Puducherry), Eastern Sporting Union (Imphal), Rising Student’s Club (Cuttack), Football Club Alakhpura (Haryana) and two teams from Aizawl FC and Pune City FC. The teams will first play in the round robin format and the top four will advance to the semis. Speaking at the launch, Praful Patel, AIFF president said, “We at AIFF just cannot look at boys. In the last four SAAF championships Indian women’s team have won. So we need to make women’s team stronger. We need to make professional women football players and the IWL is a step in that direction. This is a beginning for the women’s football in the country. We are starting with six teams and hope to expand it to 16 in future. This gives our women footballers the option to take it up as a career.”
“Our women’s team is ranked 54 in the world which is higher than the men’s ranking of 129 which means that for the upcoming FIFA women’s World Cup in 2019, if we put in the right effort our women’s team will have an outside chance of qualifying for the World Cup before the men,” Patel said.
The first leg of the qualifiers had twenty teams participating out of which nine made it to the IWL prelims held in Cuttack in October last year. Also present at the event were union sports minister, Vijay Goel and chairperson of AIFF’s women’s segment, Sarah Pilot, among others.
(With inputs from PTI)