Ten teams will participate in this year’s FAM National Women’s Championship which kicks off next month, National Women’s Football Association (NWFA) has announced.
During the inaugural edition last year, nine teams comprising of three top teams from each Region took part in the competition. The nine were placed in two groups of five and four each respectively in a competition that was played in two stages: the group stage and the knockout stage.
NWFA General Secretary Lina Mtegha said the association decided to add the 10th team to balance up the groups and ensure each team plays equal number of games before reaching the knockout stage.
“The first edition of the National Championship was a test of how the competition should be run and having assessed it, we found out that it wasn’t fair as only 6 matches were played in group A while Group B had 10 matches. This is because there were different number of teams in each group due to the odd number of participating teams. So, this time around, we will have an equal number of teams in each group”, she said.
According to Mtegha, the three fourth placed teams from the regional leagues will this weekend get into playoffs with the winner joining the nine top three teams for the National Championship draw to be conducted during the playoffs.
The three are Attu Bullets from Southern Region, Civil Service United Women from Central Region and Ekwendeni Sisters from Northern region.
The 10 teams will be placed in two groups of five each where teams will play in a single round robin format. Top two teams from each group will qualify to the semifinals.
The other nine teams are defending champions Nyasa Big Bullets Women’s, Ntopwa and Evrom from the South Ascent Academy, DD Sunshine and Destiny Academy from the Centre and CY Sisters, Moyale Barracks and Destiny Academy from the North.
