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. 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. 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. 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 to 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. ==Format==