The FA Women's National League Plate is an

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

tournament organised by the

FA Women's National League The FA Women's National League, formerly WFA National League and FA Women's Premier League (WPL), is a group of six football divisions run by the English Football Association. Founded in 1991 by the Women's Football Association, the League includ ...

(WNL). It is the WNL's second

league cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

competition, played alongside the

National League Cup The Championship Cup, (known as the Northern Rail Cup for sponsorship reasons), and previously known as the National League Cup, was a rugby league football competition for clubs in the United Kingdom's Rugby League Championships. Although the ...

, and is a

single-elimination A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

knock-out tournament.

History

The WPL Plate was introduced in 2014 following a restructuring of women's football in England. Historically the WPL had consisted of three divisions: a National Division at the top, with two regional divisions, North and South, below. The WPL was the top level of women's football in England until the introduction of the

Women's Super League The Women's Super League (WSL), currently known as the Barclays Women's Super League (BWSL) for sponsorship reasons, is the highest league of women's football in England. Established in 2010, it is run by the Football Association and features t ...

in 2011, then in 2014

WSL 2 WSL may refer to: Computing * Wide-spectrum language, a kind of programming language * Windows Subsystem for Linux, a part of Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 11 which allows the installation of Linux distributions. Organisations * Swiss Feder ...

was also inserted above the WPL in the league structure. This led to the National Division being abolished and the former Combination Leagues, which had been below the WPL in the pyramid, were incorporated as four regional divisions one level below the North and South. This meant the number of divisions in the Women's National League had doubled from three to six, so a second cup competition was added to complement the existing

Structure

The teams competing in each season's Women's National League Plate is decided by the first round of the WPL Cup, which is known as the ''Determining Round''. All 72 WPL teams are drawn in this round, with the winners of each match continuing in the Cup and the losers being entered into the Plate. As there are 36 losing teams in the determining round, a preliminary round of the Plate is held between a small number of teams to bring the number of participants down to 32, allowing a normal knock-out tournament to be held. The winners of each game proceed to the next stage, while the losers are eliminated from the tournament. All games are played over a single leg, with draws being settled by extra time and penalty kicks where required, and the final is held at a neutral venue.

List of finals

:''(N)=Team played in Northern Division, (S)=Played in Southern Division, (M1)=Played in Midlands Division One, (N1)=Played in Northern Division One, (SE1)=Played in South East Division One''

References

{{Women's football in England Recurring sporting events established in 2014