Football is the most popular sports in
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
.
Early history
Football was introduced to Myanmar, then named Burma, by the British colonialists in the 1880s, when explorer James George Scott organised a match between the British and the Burmese in
Lanmadaw Township
Lanmadaw Township ( my, လမ်းမတော် မြို့နယ်; MLCTS=lam: ma. taw mrui. nai; ) is located in the western part of downtown Yangon, and shares borders with Ahlon Township in the west, Latha Township in the east, Seik ...
. Football quickly became extremely popular across the country. So much so, that by the 1920s, Burmese started to spread the sport across East Asia. U Kyaw Din, a Burmese born in 1900, wrote one of the earliest books about the sport and promoted it so successfully in Japan that he became a member of the Japanese Football hall of fame posthumously in 2007.
In September 1926, the reportedly first women's football match was organised to raise funds for a charity.
Football governance
The
Myanmar Football Federation
The Myanmar Football Federation (MFF) ( my, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ဘောလုံး အဖွဲ့ချုပ်) is the governing body of football in Myanmar. The MFF oversees the Burmese men's national team, the women ...
(MFF) is the governing body of football in
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
. It was formed in 1947 as Burmese Football Federation and governs men's football since then and women's football since 1995.
The MFF joined
FIFA in 1952 and
AFC in 1954.
League system
The highest women's football league in the country is the
Myanmar Women League
The Women's League (WL) ( my, မြန်မာ အမျိုးသမီး လိဂ်) is a Myanmar professional league for women's football clubs. At the top of the Myanmar football league system, it is the country's primary football co ...
.
The highest men's football league is the
Myanmar National League
The MPT Myanmar National League ( my, မြန်မာ နေရှင်နယ် လိဂ်; abbreviated MNL) is the premier national professional football league of Myanmar. In 2009, the league replaced the Myanmar Premier League, which co ...
. The second division is called
MNL-2
The MNL-2 is the second-tier football league of Myanmar. The official name is MNL-2 League. The inaugural season began in 2013.
History
The MNL-2 was founded in 2013 as part of MFF's effort to extend competitiveness into the nation's football sy ...
Cup system
There is currently no women's cup tournament in Myanmar. For the men's cup, see
General Aung San Shield
General Aung San Shield (formerly ''MFF Cup'') is the top football knockout tournament in Myanmar.
On 26 March 2014, MFF League Committee Meeting decides the knock-out cup (General Aung San Shield) winner would compete in ''Toyota Mekong Champion ...
.
Men's National team
The Myanmar national team used to be among the top teams in Asia until the early 1970s. They won five consecutive editions of the
Southeast Asian Games
The Southeast Asian Games, also known as the SEA Games, is a biennial multi-sport event involving participants from the current 11 countries of Southeast Asia. The games are under the regulation of the Southeast Asian Games Federation with sup ...
between 1965 and 1973 and the
Asian Games in 1966 and 1970. In 1968, the team finished runners-up at the
AFC Asian Cup, only losing to
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
in the final. Most notably, the Burmese national team, as it was called at the time, finished 9th at the
1972 Olympics in Munich after beating
Sudan 2:0 and losing just 0:1 to later Bronze medalist
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. They did win the Fair Play Award at the Games.
The national team never qualified for a
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...
.
Women's national team
The national team is one of the most successful in South East Asia, sitting in the third place of the All-Time Table of the
AFF Women's Championship
The AFF Women's Championship is the competition in women's football organised by the ASEAN Football Federation, contested by the national teams of nations in Southeast Asia and Australia. The official tournament started in 2004, hosted by Vie ...
, which they won twice (2004 and 2007). They qualified for the
AFC Women's Asian Cup on five occasions, missing only three tournaments, but never made it past the group stages.
Myanmar football clubs
Myanmar football stadiums
References
External links
Myanmar Football Federation
{{Football in Asia
Football in Myanmar