The Ghana Women’s Premier League (GWPL), currently known as the Malta Guinness Women's Premier League for sponsorship reasons, was launched in 2012 as the National Women's League (NWL) and is the top division league for women's football in

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

. Contested by 18 clubs in two zones (southern and northern zone), it operates on a system of

promotion and relegation In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

with the Ghana Women's Division One. Seasons run from December to July with each team playing 16 matches (playing all 8 other teams in their zone both home and away). Most games are played on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. In November 2021, Hilary Boateng was appointed by the

Ghana Football Association The Ghana Football Association (GFA) is a governing body of association football, based in Accra. Founded in 1957, it was dissolved with "immediate effect", according to Minister of Sport, Isaac Kwame Asiamah, on 7 June 2018, after the uncoverin ...

as the chairperson of the Women's Premier League Committee.

History

Up to 2006, only some regional areas had active women's football leagues. In 2006, a zonal league was created, that played out a national champion for the first time. Ghana was divided into three zones that played a league stage. Each zone then advanced two teams to a national stage. The current format was first played in 2012–13. The league is played in two divisions. After the league stage, both division winners meet in a championship final. The first final was won by Hasaacas Ladies 2–1 over Fabulous Ladies at the Accra Sports Stadium. A large part of the football equipment was sponsored by

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 ...

2012–13 founding teams

The twelve teams of the initial season were divided into two zones of six teams.

2020–present

In 2021, the Executive Council of the Ghana Football Association decided to expand the League from its current format 16 clubs to 18 clubs beginning from the 2021–22 season, meaning nine teams for the respective zones to allow for a minimum of 16 league matches in a season.

Competition format

Competition

There are 16 clubs in the Women's Premier League, 8 in the southern zone and 8 in the northern zone. During the course of a season (from December to July) each club in each zone plays the others twice (a double round-robin system), once at their home stadium and once at that of their opponents', for 16 games in each zone making it 32 games all together. Teams receive

three points for a win Three points for a win is a standard used in many sports leagues and group tournaments, especially in association football, in which three points are awarded to the team winning a match, with no points awarded to the losing team. If the game is ...

and one point for a draw. No points are awarded for a loss. Teams are

ranked A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of ...

by total points, then

goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

, and then goals scored. If still equal, teams are deemed to occupy the same position. At the end of the zonal league both top placed clubs and zonal winners meet in a championship final to decide the national champion.

Promotion and relegation

A system of

exists between the Premier League and the Division One League. The lowest placed teams in both zones of the Premier League are relegated to the Division One League, and the top teams from both zones in the Championship promoted to the Premier League. The number of clubs was increased from 16 to 18 in 2021–22 season.

Championship finals

The list of champions and runners-ups: ''2019*** Ghana Women's Special Competition''

Winners by club

Sponsorship

From its inception, the league did not have a title sponsor and was simply referred to as National Women’s League. In 2018, FreshPak, a subsidiary of Groupe Nduom, were announced as the league's first ever

title sponsor Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...

worth GH¢500,000 over the next two seasons. On 5 August 2022, the

announced Malta Guinness as the league's title sponsor worth GH¢10 million for three years from the 2022–23 season onwards. Electroland Ghana Ltd, distributors of NASCO electronic appliances, has been a partner and sponsor of the Women's Premier League since 2019–20 season. The company sponsors the

Player of the Match In team sport, a player of the match or man of the match or woman of the match award is often given to the most outstanding player in a particular match. This can be a player from either team, although the player is generally chosen from the winn ...

award, the monthly awards which includes the Player of the month and Coach of the month awards along with the annual and end of the season awards Player of the season, Top Scorer, Discovery of the year award, Best Goalkeeper and Coach of the season awards. In October 2020, the GFA signed a four-year partnership deal with Decathlon Ghana which includes Decathlon providing 1,000 Kipsta balls and other complementary sports products per year to the league from the 2020–21 season onwards. In February 2022,

online gambling Online gambling is any kind of gambling conducted on the internet. This includes virtual poker, casinos and sports betting. The first online gambling venue opened to the general public was ticketing for the Liechtenstein International Lottery in ...

company

Betway Betway is an online gambling company. Founded in 2006, it offers betting and gambling products including sportsbook and online casino. Betway has offices in London, Malta, Guernsey, and Cape Town, South Africa. Overview The Betway brand holds lic ...

signed a sponsorship deal with the Ghana Football Association as a Development Partner of the Ghana Women's Premier League. As a development partner, amongst their roles would be to provide a season-long mentorship and leadership programme for officials, administrators and coaches of the women's football clubs. Betway also provides training equipment and warm-up kits to all participating clubs in the GWPL. The sponsorship was extended in February 2023.

Media coverage

In February 2020, the Ghana Football Association signed a broadcasting right sponsorship deal with StarTimes Television for six years starting from the 2019–20 Ghana Premier League season. As part of the deal

StarTimes StarTimes is a Chinese electronics and media company with strong presence in Sub-Saharan Africa. StarTimes offers digital terrestrial television and satellite television services to consumers, and provides technologies to countries and broadcas ...

dedicated $100,000 in the first year as a visibility support to both the Ghana Division One League and women's football especially the Ghana Women's Premier League. They dedicated $50,000 for the following five years. As part of the deal,

StarTimes Sports StarTimes Sports is a chain of pay-television sports broadcasting channels operated by StarTimes in sub-Saharan Africa. History StarTimes first foray into sports broadcasting was in 2012, when it purchased a package of Italian Serie A games ...

and shareholders Max TV broadcast both the

2020–21 Ghana Women's Premier League Final The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

and 2020–21 Ghana Women's FA Cup Final.

References

External links

League at Federation website
{{Top level women's association football leagues around the world Women's association football leagues in Africa

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 ...

1 Women's sports leagues in Ghana Women's football competitions in Ghana