Indian Women's League

Indian Women's League
	File:Indian Women's League Logo.png
Founded	2016
Country	India
Confederation	AFC (Asia)
Number of teams	24
Level on pyramid	1
Current champions	Gokulam Kerala
Most championships	Eastern Sporting Union; Rising Student's Club; Sethu FC; Gokulam Kerala; (1 time each)
Website	www.the-aiff.com/competitions/iwl/
	Current: 2019–20 IWL season

The Indian Women's League is the top division women's professional football league in India with the first season kicking off in Cuttack in October 2016.^[1] The league is run by the All India Football Federation (AIFF).

History

Since 1991, the top women's football tournament in India has been the Indian Women's Football Championship. The tournament served as a female equivalent of the Santosh Trophy, with states competing against each other.^[2] There had never been an organized national football league for women; however, leagues were started by state associations for women. The first women's state football league was set up in 1976 in Manipur. The Indian Football Association of West Bengal founded the Calcutta Women's League in 1993. Leagues were also started in Mumbai and Goa in 1998 and 1999 respectively.^[2]

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, mainly along the lines of the recently started and successful Indian Super League, started.^[3] Clubs such as Pune and Bengaluru FC had expressed interest in the joining a women's league.^[3] It was around this time that the All India Football Federation started plans to create the ISL-style league for women.^[4]

On 21 April 2016, over a year after the AIFF started plans for a women's football league, the AIFF President, Praful Patel, said that a women's football league would kick off in October 2016^{[needs update]} with six teams to be decided, with the goal to expand to eight teams by 2017.^[1] Just over two months later, on 5 July 2016, the AIFF organized a workshop to discuss the India women's national team and discuss the proposed women's football league. Five Indian Super League sides (Delhi Dynamos, Chennaiyin FC, Kerala Blasters, FC Pune City, Atletico de Kolkata) and three I-League teams (Bengaluru FC, Aizawl FC, Mumbai FC) attended the workshop. It was announced that the league would feature the eight teams in the league and two other spots would be determined through a pre-qualification round.^[5]

On 14 October, the AIFF announced that the preliminary rounds for the Women's League would begin on 17 October 2016 in which ten teams are split into two groups of five teams each, with the winner from each group qualifying for the national finals.^[6]

Seasons

Season 1 (2016–17)

On 24 January 2017, AIFF launched the first ever women's professional league with six teams. The participating teams – FC Alakhpura (Haryana), Jeppiaar Institute of Technology FC (Puducherry), Aizawl FC (Women) (Mizoram), FC Pune City (women) (Maharashtra), Rising Student's Club (Odisha) and Eastern Sporting Union (Manipur) play each other in a round-robin format with the top four teams advancing to the semifinals. All matches of the two-week Indian Women's League (IWL) were played at Delhi's Ambedkar Stadium with the first match scheduled for Saturday, January 28.

Season 2 (2017–18)

The final round of the season was played at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Shillong. Rising Student's Club from Odisha were crowned champions after beating Eastern Sporting Union.

Season 3 (2018–19)

Indian Women's League season 3 main round started on 5 May 2019. All matches to be played in Guru Nanak Stadium, Ludhiana, Punjab.^[7] The 2018–19 IWL will have 12 teams, divided into two groups. The teams will play each other once and the top two teams will compete in the semi-final.sethu FC crowned unbeaten champions

Season 4 (2019–20)

Indian Women's League season 4 main round started on 24 January 2020. All matches were played in Bangalore Football Stadium, Bengaluru, Karnataka.^[8] The 2019–20 IWL will have 12 teams, divided into two groups. The teams will play each other once and the top two teams will compete in the semi-final. Gokulam Kerala were crowned champions after beating KRYPHSA F.C. 3–2 in the final.^[9]

All 12 Teams are as follows :
Group A	Group B
Baroda Football Academy	Bangalore United FC
BBK Dav FC	Bidesh XI FC
FC Kolhapur City	Odisha Police FC
Kickstart FC	Kenkre FC
KRYPHSA	Sreebhumi FC
Sethu	Gokulam Kerala

Results

Season	Winner	Result	Runner Up	Ref.
2016–17	Eastern Sporting Union	3–0	Rising Student's Club	^[10]^[11]
2017–18	Rising Student's Club	1–1 (a.e.t.) (5–4 p)	Eastern Sporting Union
2018–19	Sethu	3–1	Manipur Police SC
2019–20	Gokulam Kerala	3-2	KRYPHSA	^[9]

Winning head coaches

As of 22 May 2019

Head Coach	Club	Wins	Winning season
	Eastern Sporting Union	1	2016−17
Sukla Dutta	Rising Student's Club	1	2017−18
Amrutha Aravind	Sethu FC	1	2018−19
Priya P.V	Gokulam Kerala	1	2019–20

Prizes

Prize money

As updated on 14 February 2020. ^[9]

Position	Purse
Champions	₹ 10 Lakhs
1st Runners-up	₹ 5 Lakhs
Most Valuable Player	₹ 1.25 Lakhs
Top Goalscorer	₹ 1 Lakh
Best Goalkeeper	₹ 1 Lakh
Emerging Player	₹ 75 Thousand

Stats and Players

Top goal scorers

As of 14 February 2020

Rank	Player	Seasons	Goals
1	Ngangom Bala Devi	2	38
2	Sabitra Bhandari	2	31
3	Nongmaithem Ratanbala Devi	3	25
3	Sandhiya Ranganathan	4	25
5	Yumnam Kamala Devi	3	22
6	Dangmei Grace	4	15
6	Anju Tamang	4	15
8	Karishma Shirvoikar	2	11
9	Manisha Kalyan	3	9
	Irom Prameshwori Devi	4
	Kashmina M. S.	3
12	Sanju Yadav	3	8
13	Sasmita Malik	1	7
	Pyari Xaxa	3
	Soumya Guguloth	1
16	Sabina Khatun	1	6
16	Jabamani Tudu	3	6
18	Fazila Ikwaput	1	5
	Heigrujam Daya Devi	1
	Indumathi Kathiresan	3
	Pradeepa Sekar	3
	Sumithra Kamaraj	2

Top scorer by season

Season	Player	Club	Goals
2016−17	Yumnam Kamala Devi	Eastern Sporting Union	12
2017−18	Ngangom Bala Devi	Kryphsa F.C.	12
2018−19	Ngangom Bala Devi	Manipur Police SC	26
2019–20	Sabitra Bhandari	Gokulam Kerala	16

Hat-trick scorer