Adran Leagues: FAW announces new identity for women's football in Wales
- Published
Reigning Welsh Premier Women's League champions Swansea City in action against Cardiff City
The Football Association of Wales (FAW) has rebranded its revamped structure for women's football as the Adran Leagues.
The top-flight competition will be known as the Adran Premier, using the Welsh word for division.
There will also be second tier Adran North and Adran South leagues.
The FAW says it has taken the decision to remove the term 'women's' from the newly named competitions to create parity across all FAW leagues.
Men's football in Wales was relaunched as the Cymru Leagues in 2019, while the FAW now also refers to its international sides as Cymru rather than using Wales.
The FAW said the use of adran underlines its commitment to the Welsh language, adding that Wales is only the third country in Europe, and the first in the United Kingdom, to remove the word women.
"We want our players to feel empowered every time they step onto the pitch," said Lowri Roberts, head of women's football at the FAW.
"Football has exactly the same rules no matter what gender you identify as, what country you're from or what language you speak.
"In this new chapter for the domestic game in Wales, we want to make a statement that by removing 'women's' from the league name, the game remains exactly the same - it's football."
The governing body of football in Wales announced the teams who will make up the new divisions in May, with eight of fifteen applicants successful in their bids to be included in the top tier. Abergavenny Women's FC, who finished fourth in the final Welsh Women's Premier League but missed out on a place, were amongst those critical of the choices.
"The new structure will create clearer pathways, improved provision and games programmes, and support for players allowing us to better nurture our footballing talent in Wales," added Roberts.
"This gives our players a stronger platform to achieve their potential. In turn, this will serve both the Welsh representative in the Uefa Women's Champions League and Cymru's ambitions to qualify for a major international tournament."
Cardiff Met, Cardiff City, Swansea City, Port Talbot Town, The New Saints, Aberystwyth Town, Pontypridd Town and Barry Town United will play each other home and away in the Adran Premier.
After the initial 14 rounds of fixtures, the top four clubs play each other again both home and away, as will the four bottom sides.
The Adran Premier champions will represent Wales in the Uefa Women's Champions League. The team finishing eighth will be relegated to the Adran South/North.
The eight Adran South and Adran North teams will play home and away. The North and South winners will compete in a play-off with the winner promoted to the Adran Premier.
There will also be Adran North and Adran South under-19 leagues.
The FAW has also agreed a title sponsorship for the new competition with production and creative events company Genero, which they labelled the most lucrative for women's domestic football in Wales to date.
The deal means for the first two years, the competitions will be named the Genero Adran Leagues.
Fixtures are yet to be announced for competitions which will start in September.
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