Women's soccer 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 women's professional sports, professional level in multiple c ...

began in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

during the 1960s and gained popularity in the 1990s, when the first national women's team was formed.

History

South African women's soccer started in 1960 during the

Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

era. Orlando Pirates Women's Football Club and Mother City Girls were among the first women's soccer clubs formed in 1962.

National league

Sanlam National Women's Football League was set up in the late 1990s with the goal of increasing the number of women in soccer administration and a second season was played in 2002. South Africa does not have a national women's football league. The league is believed to have been discontinued as no more seasons have been played since the early 2000s. In 2012, then Minister of Sports and recreation,

Fikile Mbalula Fikile April Mbalula (born 1 April 1971 in the Free State) is a South African politician who is currently serving in the cabinet as Minister of Transport. He previously served as both Minister and Deputy Minister of Police and Minister of Sport ...

, called for the creation of a women's football league after the national women's football team,

Banyana Banyana The South Africa women's national soccer team, nicknamed ''Banyana Banyana'' (The Girls), is the national team of South Africa and is controlled by the South African Football Association. Their first official match was held on 30 May 1993 agai ...

, returned from the

2012 Olympic Games The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

defeated.

National team

South Africa women's national football team The South Africa women's national soccer team, nicknamed ''Banyana Banyana'' (The Girls), is the national team of South Africa and is controlled by the South African Football Association. Their first official match was held on 30 May 1993 agai ...

, nicknamed "Banyana Banyana" has been participating in international soccer since 1993, when they beat

Swaziland Eswatini ( ; ss, eSwatini ), officially the Kingdom of Eswatini and formerly named Swaziland ( ; officially renamed in 2018), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by Mozambique to its northeast and South Africa to its no ...

14–0 on 30 May of that year. This is their biggest win to date. The team is controlled by the

South African Football Association The South African Football Association (colloquially known as SAFA) is the national administrative governing body that controls the sport of football in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) and is a member of the Confederation of African Football ...

International participation

, the South African national women's soccer team has not qualified for the

FIFA Women's World Cup The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association ( FIFA), the sport's international governing bo ...

. They have been competing in the

CAF Women's Championship The Women's Africa Cup of Nations, also called the TotalEnergies Women's Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons and abbreviated to WAFCON, is an international women's football competition held every two years and sanctioned by the Conf ...

since 1995. They qualified for the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

for the first time at the

. Banyana Banyana to their first WAFCON victory in 2022, where they defeated hosts Morocco 2-1 in the final.

References

{{Women's football in Africa Soccer in South Africa

History

National league

National team

International participation

See also

References