NEW DELHI: The stage is set for the 2023 season of the Hero Indian Women’s League, the country’s top-flight club competition for women’s football, to kick off from Wednesday morning in Ahmedabad.
The 2022-23 season will see 16 teams in the fray for the title, the most expansive the league has been in its short history. It provides a unique opportunity for many to stake a claim for next season. The top eight teams from this season will get direct slots in next season’s Hero IWL, which will be played on a home-and-away basis.
The IWL will take place entirely in Ahmedabad and will be held across two grounds – TransStadia and Shahibaug Police Stadium. The last group stage match will be held on May 13.
For the duration of the tournament, there will be four matches a day, with the first two kicking off at 8 AM and the second two at 4.30 PM, ESPN reports.
IWL telecast
As far as live telecast of the IWL is concerned, only the evening games can be watched online. The evening matches will be shown on the Indian Football YouTube channel.
Day one starts with matches between Misaka United and Mata Rukmani at Transstadia and Sports Odisha taking on HOPS FC at the same time at Shahibaug.
Defending champions Gokulam Kerala will obviously go in as one of the 16 teams in the competition to watch, but there are new challengers on the block, Odisha FC not just spending big to fill their squad with multiple national team regulars, but also conducting a long pre-season to ensure the team is built for success.
This, ultimately, must be the goal for many IWL sides, feels senior women’s national team head coach Thomas Dennerby. “A vibrant league, where clubs take charge of training players, keeping them fit, ensuring their well-being is the most integral part of a thriving ecosystem,” he says. “Ideally, this should happen through the year and the national team will only come in during the FIFA windows and at certain times during the off-season to work with the players. This puts the onus on the clubs and creates better players too.”
With new regulations regarding wages and the structure of the league itself set to be enforced starting next season, many club owners are already looking ahead and planning a way forward to sustain and grow the game in the country. Mumbai Knights founder Deepu Biswas believes that enforcing the minimum wage will force the clubs’ hand. “If clubs are going to spend money on players then obviously we will also demand that the players stay with the club for longer durations,” he says. “This will enable us to demand more tournaments at the state level, or even at the national level where we can give the players game time.”
For many players, especially those who have been part of the age-group sides, the coming season is also a chance to stake a claim in the senior team.
For IWL 2023 fixtures (Courtesy ESPN), click here…
