The Ghana Women’s Premier League (GWPL), also 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 a top division league for women's soccer in

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

. In November 2021, Hilary Boateng was appointed by the

Ghana Football Association The Ghana Football Association (GFA) is the sports governing body, governing body of association football in Ghana, based in the capital city, Accra. Founded in 1957 to replace the Gold Coast (British colony), Gold Coast Football Association whi ...

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

History

Up to 2006, regional areas had active women's soccer leagues. In 2006, a zonal league was created, that played out a national champion for the first time. Ghana was divided into 3 zones that played a league stage. Each zone then advanced 2 teams to a national stage. A format was played in 2012–13. The league is played in 2 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 part of the soccer equipment was sponsored by

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

. The 12 teams of the initial season were divided into 2 zones of 6 teams. In 2021, the Executive Council of the Ghana Football Association decided to expand the League from its format 16 clubs to 18 clubs beginning from the 2021–22 season, meaning 9 teams for the respective zones to allow for a minimum of 16 league matches in a season.

Format

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 3 points are awarded to the team winning a match, with no points awarded to the losing team. If the game is draw ...

and 1 point for a draw. No points are awarded for a loss. Teams are

ranked A ranking is a relationship between a set of items, often recorded in a list, 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 ...

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

promotion and relegation Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

exists between the Premier League and the Division 1 League. The lowest placed teams in zones of the Premier League are relegated to the Division 1 League, and the top teams from zones in the Championship promoted to the Premier League. The number of clubs was increased from 16 to 18 in 2021–22 season.

Finals

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

Winners by club

Sponsorship

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 award (also known as man of the match or woman of the match) 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 chose ...

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 Ghana Football Association signed a four-year partnership deal with

Decathlon The decathlon is a combined event in athletics consisting of 10 track and field events. The word "decathlon" was formed, in analogy to the word "pentathlon", from Greek δέκα (''déka'', meaning "ten") and ἄθλος (''áthlos'', or ἄ ...

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. The deal was extended for another four years in November 2024. In February 2022,

online gambling Online gambling (also known as iGaming or iGambling) 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 th ...

company

Betway Betway is a British gambling company founded in 2006. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. Business operations are led from its headquarters in Malta, alongside satellite offices in Londo ...

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 soccer clubs. Betway provides training equipment and warm-up kits to all participating clubs in GWPL. The sponsorship was extended in February 2023.

Title sponsors

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 where a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event (most often sports venues), typical ...

worth GH¢500,000 over the next 2 seasons. In August 2022, the Ghana Football Association announced Malta Guinness as the league's title sponsor worth GH¢10 million for 3 years from the 2022–23 season onwards.

Media coverage

In February 2020, the Ghana Football Association signed a broadcasting right sponsorship deal with StarTimes Television for 6 years starting from the 2019–20 Ghana Premier League season. As part of the deal

StarTimes StarTimes is a Chinese electronics and media company in Sub-Saharan Africa. StarTimes offers digital terrestrial television and satellite television services to consumers, and provides technologies to countries and broadcasters that are switchi ...

dedicated $100,000 in the first year as a visibility support to the Ghana Division 1 League and women's soccer especially the Ghana Women's Premier League. They dedicated $50,000 for the following 5 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 the 2020–21 Ghana Women's Premier League Final 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 A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

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