East Bengal Women are all set to begin their title defense in the Indian Women’s League (IWL) on home soil as the first leg of the women’s top tournament gets underway on Saturday.
The IWL, in its ninth edition, will be held in a centralized format here at the National Center of Excellence and Kalyani Stadium. A total of eight teams will compete for the crown, which has seen three different winners in the last three seasons: East Bengal, Odisha FC Women and Gokulam Kerala FC, in that order. Gokulam Kerala enjoys the distinction of having won three consecutive titles from 2020 to 2023.
The tournament comes as a welcome relief in the gloomy scenario of Indian football, where the competitions in the men’s calendar are in jeopardy in the absence of an investor who can secure funds. That said, the ripples of the crisis are also being felt in women’s football. After no sponsor is found, basic facilities for teams are not provided by the organizer – the AIFF – which has handed over the responsibility to the respective team managements. Not much is happening in terms of promotion, now that the top competition in women’s football is quietly starting.
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The IWL will provide necessary match practice to national team players ahead of the senior and under-20 Asian Cup assignments in March 2026.
The IWL will be played in a double round-robin format in two phases, with the first phase seeing each club play seven matches from December 20, 2025 to January 9, 2026. The second phase of matches will begin on April 20 and end in the second week of May. The venue format is noticeably different from the 2024-2025 season when the tournament was organized in Kolkata, Kozhikode, New Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar.
In the absence of a broadcasting partner to bring the matches live on television, the All India Football Federation has made arrangements for live streaming on its Indian Football YouTube channel.
Besides regular contenders like East Bengal, Gokulam Kerala, Sethu FC, Kickstart FC, Sreebhumi FC and Nita FC, this season will also feature newly promoted teams Garhwal United FC and Sesa Football Academy, who are keen to make a good first impression in their maiden appearance in the country’s top flight of football.
Meanwhile, ‘hosts’ East Bengal will be hoping to make the most of home advantage in their bid to become only the second team to defend their IWL title after Gokulam Kerala. The Malabarians, on the other hand, will be looking to regain the crown they ceded two seasons ago to Odisha FC, who were tragically relegated to IWL 2 last season. Madurai-based Sethu FC, making their eighth appearance in the IWL, will be hoping to channel their championship-winning form from the 2018-2019 season.
With such an interesting lineup, the battle for the title is expected to become intense as the season progresses.
Published on December 19, 2025
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