The 2022 Women's National League known as the SSE Airtricity WNL for sponsorship reasons, was the 12th season of the Women's National League, the highest

women's association football Women's association football, more commonly known simply as women's football or women's soccer, is a team sport of association football when played by women only. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries and 176 national te ...

league in the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...

since its establishment in 2011.

Expansion team An expansion team is a new team in a sports league, usually from a city that has not hosted a team in that league before, formed with the intention of satisfying the demand for a local team from a population in a new area. Sporting leagues also ...

Sligo Rovers Sligo Rovers Football Club ( ga, Cumann Peile Ruagairí Shligigh) is an Irish professional football club playing in the Premier Division of the League of Ireland. The club is based in Sligo in the west of Ireland. The club was founded in 1928 ...

competed for the first time, bringing the league up to ten clubs. Shelbourne, as defending champions from the previous season, won the 2022 league by defeating Wexford Youths on the final day of the season. In July 2022 Shelbourne announced the signing of highly-decorated United States international player

Heather O'Reilly Heather Ann O'Reilly (born January 2, 1985) is an American professional soccer player who plays as a midfielder for Irish club Shelbourne of the Women's National League. She played for the United States women's national soccer team (USWNT), w ...

, who emerged from retirement after two years. The transfer brought substantial publicity and increased the profile of the league.

Teams

Personnel and kits

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

Managerial changes

Format

The ten teams played each other three times, with a mid-season break from 12 June to 1 July 2022.

League table

Standings

Positions by round

The table lists the positions of teams after each week of matches. In order to preserve chronological evolvements, any postponed matches are not included to the round at which they were originally scheduled, but added to the full round they were played immediately afterwards.

Results

Matches 1–24

Teams play each other twice.

Matches 19–27

Teams play each other once.

Statistics

Top scorers

As of 30 October 2022. Source:Women's National League

Awards

Monthly awards

Annual awards

Broadcasting

In February 2021 the Football Association of Ireland announced that all WNL matches would be streamed free of charge on the new LOITV platform. In February 2022 the

TG4 TG4 ( ga, TG Ceathair, ) is an Irish free-to-air public service television network. The channel launched on 31 October 1996 and is available online and through its on demand service TG4 Player in Ireland and beyond. TG4 was formerly known ...

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

television network confirmed an intention to broadcast nine WNL matches in 2022. Ultimately 10 games were broadcast live, which attracted over 500,000 viewers.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:2022 Women's National League (Ireland) Women's National League (Ireland) seasons

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Women A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...