New League Leads the Way

The Welsh Premier Women’s League kicked off its inaugural season under floodlights at Park Avenue on Thursday 24 September, Aberystwyth Town facing Llanidloes Town in front of hundreds of fans. Funded by the FAW and the culmination of 18 months’ work by the National Girls’ Football Working Group, it takes eight clubs – Aberystwyth, Caernarfon, Llanidloes and Wrexham from mid and north Wales, Manorbier, Newcastle Emlyn, Swansea City and UWIC from the south – chosen from 19 who expressed interest, and grows to ten next season. The champions, crowned in April, collect GBP8,000 in prize money and the chance to represent Wales in the UEFA Women’s Champions League; the runners-up receive GBP3,000. Secretary John Deakin launched the men’s Welsh Premier seventeen years earlier. Kath Morgan, former international and Wales assistant coach, calls the league a vital tool for raising standards and producing the international-standard players Wales currently lacks.