Women's soccer Women's association football, more commonly known as women's football or women's soccer, is the team sport of association football played by women. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries, and about 200 national teams partic ...

began in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

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: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

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. In 2009, a semi-professional women's football league the

Sasol Women's League The Sasol Women's League is the second-tier South African women's association football league, sponsored by Sasol since 2013. It is semi-professional, and operates as a provincial league, with two "streams" of 8-10 teams in each of South Africa ...

was established with the aim of developing the women's game. In 2012, the Ministry of Sports and Recreation called for the creation of a women's football league after the national women's football team, Banyana Banyana, returned from the

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

without a single win.

2019-present:SAFA Women's National League

In August 2019, the inaugural SAFA Women's National League was launched. The following teams formed part of the 12 team league. They consisted of the nine provincial winners that took part in the 2018 Sasol League National Championship and three teams invited to join the league. *invited teams

Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies F.C. is a women's professional soccer club based in Pretoria, South Africa. The team competes in the SAFA Women's League, the top tier women's football league in South Africa. They are the most successful women's team ...

won the inaugural season undefeated with 21 wins and 1 draw. (C) Champion A copy of the match results of the inaugural season.

Pyramid system

When the SAFA Women's League started in 2019 as the level 1 division, it displaced the Sasol Women's League to level 2 and the SAFA Women's Regional League to level 3. The Sasol Women's League still serves as a provincial league with the nine provincial SAFA's overseeing their respective league. The SAFA Women's Regional League serves as the third division and is overseen by the Local Football Associations (LFAs).They are currently 52 regions across South Africa's nine provinces. Each LFA champion then competes in a single-location provincial SAFA Regional Championship to crown the team that will be promoted to the provincial league.

Youth Leagues

SAFA announced its provincial members would be setting up girls youth leagues around the country in order to improve girls soccer in the country as the youth national teams were struggling. By 2024, Basetsana had not qualified for the

FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup The FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup is an international association football tournament, organized by FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), for national teams of women under the age of 20. The tournament is held biennially. ...

and Bantwana had last qualified in 2018. The U/15 Girls Inter-LFA League was launched in 2023 in the

Limpopo Limpopo () is the northernmost Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a ...

province. In the

Gauteng Gauteng ( , ; Sotho-Tswana languages, Sotho-Tswana for 'place of gold'; or ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts f ...

province, the Gauteng Women's Development League was launched with the inaugural season being an U/15 league only. In 2024, the league had switched to two divisions for U/16 and U/14 girls. The launch of the girls youth leagues also coincided the launch of a new national team. The South Africa women's national U/15 team. In 2022 and 2023 the team won the COSAFA Schools Cup. In 2024 they won their maiden

CAF African Schools Football Championship The CAF African Schools Football Championship is an annual African schools Women's association football, association football competition launched in 2022 and organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Its main focus is to develop or ...

. In September 2024, SAFA held the inaugural U15 Talent Development Scheme (TDS) Girls interprovincial championship with all nine provinces selecting a team to represent them. Gauteng won the first edition after defeating the Western Cape 2–1 in the final held at Panorama Football Club, in

Roodepoort Roodepoort ( ) is a city in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Formerly an independent municipality, Roodepoort became part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, Johannesburg municipality in the late 1990s, along with Randburg ...

. The aim of this tournament is to identify players to be monitored by national scouts for the U/15 team and eventually the U/17 team.

National teams

South Africa women's national football team The South Africa women's national football team represents South Africa in women's international soccer and is run by the South African Football Association, the governing body for Soccer in South Africa. Nicknamed Banyana Banyana (The Girls i ...

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

Swaziland Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where ...

14–0 on 30 May of that year. This is their biggest win to date. South Africa women's national under-20 team, is nicknamed "Basetsana". Equipe sud africaine

South Africa women's national under-17 soccer team, nicknamed "Bantwana". The teams are 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 Footbal ...

International participation

They have been competing in the CAF Women's Championship since 1995. They qualified for the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

for the first time at the

. Banyana Banyana won their first

Women's Africa Cup of Nations The Women's Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), known for sponsorship purposes as the TotalEnergies Women's Africa Cup of Nations and formerly the African Women's Championship, is a biennial international women's football tournament organized by ...

, when they defeated hosts Morocco 2–1 in the

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

final. Banyana Banyana made their

FIFA Women's World Cup The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior list of women's national association football teams, women's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internationale de Footb ...

debut in

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

. At the

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

edition, they became the first South African team to qualify for the knockout stages at a world cup by reaching the round of 16. Bantwana made their

FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup The FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup is an annual (biennial until 2024) international women's association football tournament for female players under the age of 17. It is organized by ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (FIFA) ...

debut in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

. Bantwana made their second appearance at the

2018 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup The 2018 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup was the sixth edition of the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, the biennial international women's youth football championship contested by the under-17 national teams of the member associations of FIFA, since its i ...

. They have not made it past the group stages on the tournament. Bantwana hold the African record for most goals in an international match. They scored 28 goals (won 28–0) against Seychelles in the opening match of group B at the

2019 COSAFA U-17 Women's Championship 2019 COSAFA Women's U17 Championship was the first edition of COSAFA U-17 Women's Championship and took place on September 20–29, 2019, in Mauritius. Guest nation Uganda become champions after winning 2-1 in the final to South Africa. Participa ...

References

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