BHUBANESWAR 24-Jan-2017
All India Football Federation (AIFF) today launched the first ever Women’s Professional League which is to be contested among six teams. All matches of the two-week-long Indian Women’s League (IWL) will be played at Ambedkar Stadium in Delhi from January 28.
Rising Student Club, the Cuttack-based Odisha team will meet Aizawl FC in the opening match on January 28. AIFF President Praful Patel, Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Vijay Goel, woman wrestling star Sakshi Malik and representatives from the six teams were present at the launching ceremony.
The six participating teams _ FC Alakhpura (Haryana), Jeppiaar Institute of Technology FC (Puducherry), Aizawl FC (Mizoram), FC Pune City (Maharashtra), Rising Student Club (Odisha) and Eastern Sporting Union (Manipur) would play each other in a round-robin format with the top four teams advancing to the semifinals.
Altogether 20 teams from across nine states had taken part in the first leg of the qualifiers from which nine teams qualified for the IWL prelims which were held in Cuttack in October 2016. Dalima Chibber (FC Pune City), Oinam Bembem Devi (ESUFC), Sasmita Malik (Rising Student FC), Sanju Yadav (FC Alakhpura), Sumithra Kamaraj (Jeppiar Institute FC) and K Lalruaizeli (Aizawl FC) represented their respective teams at the launch.
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PHOTO: AIFF president Praful Patel, Sports Minister Vijay Goel, wrestling Olympian Sakshi Malik and representative of six teams at the launching ceremony of the Indian Women’s League in Delhi on Jan 24, 2017.
