The Northern Ireland Football League Charity Shield is the national

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 ...

super cup A super cup is a competition, usually but not exclusively in association football, which often forms the 'curtain raiser' to a season, and typically involves only two teams who have qualified through success in other competitions during the prev ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. It has been held on an occasional basis since its inauguration in 1992. Similar to the English

FA Community Shield The Football Association Community Shield (formerly the Charity Shield) is English football's annual match contested at Wembley Stadium between the champions of the previous Premier League season and the holders of the FA Cup. If the Premier Le ...

, it pits together the previous campaign's Irish League champions and

Irish Cup The Irish Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly referred to as the Irish Cup (currently known as the Samuel Gelston's Whiskey Irish Cup for sponsorship purposes) is the primary football knock-out cup competition in Northern Ireland. Ina ...

winners, providing the opening match of the Irish League season. Crusaders are the current holders, after they defeated Linfield 2–0 in the 2022 edition to win the competition for the first time.

Sponsorship

McEwan's Lager McEwan's is a brand of beer owned by Carlsberg Marston's Brewing Company. It was originally brewed by William McEwan's Fountain Brewery in Edinburgh, Scotland. The McEwan's brand passed to Heineken in 2008 after their purchase of Scottish & New ...

sponsored the competition between 1992 and 1994, and

Wilkinson Sword Wilkinson Sword is a formerly British brand for Safety razor, razors and other personal care products sold in Europe, owned by the US company Edgewell Personal Care. The company was founded as a manufacturer of guns made in Shotley Bridge in Co ...

were sponsors from 1998 until 2000, both of whom also sponsored other competitions in Irish League football. The proceeds from the 2014 and 2015 editions were donated to the Northern Ireland Hospice.

Format

The Shield is held in early August as a single match. In the 1992 and 1993 editions, the trophy was shared between the two competing sides for six months when both matches finished level at full-time. However, the rules were later changed to ensure an outright winner. In the 2014 edition, a penalty shoot-out was used to determine the winner when the match ended level after 90 minutes, without extra time being played.

Results

Key:

Performance by club

External links

Charity Shield Archive at the Irish Football Club Project

References

{{National football Supercups (UEFA region) National association football supercups Recurring sporting events established in 1992 Association football cup competitions in Northern Ireland