It isn’t exactly outrageous to suggest that women’s football mirrors the men’s game in one factor: things get complicated once you start looking at the lower leagues.
The governing bodies over the years, which have included both the Women’s Football Association and the Football Association itself, haven’t helped matters by regularly giving the leagues similar names or even the same titles as previous versions.
If you only follow men’s football loosely, you might see ‘Premier Division’ and presume it’s the best, whereas in actual fact that is an honour given over to the Women’s Super League. So where do these leagues fit into the structure?
Fitting into the Overall Structure
The Regional Leagues occupy Level 5 of the English women’s football pyramid, which is the tier immediately below the FA Women’s National League Division One groups that you can read about elsewhere on this site.
This is the first level at which the structure becomes entirely regional in character, rather than nationally administered as the others are. In previous decades, there had been women’s Regional Leagues, which continue today, sitting at Level 5 of the pyramid, below which the county leagues now follow. Their roots therefore predate the national structure altogether.
These were the competitions that women’s football had to make do with before the WFA National League was inaugurated in 1991 and they simply carried on once the national pyramid was built above them.
There are eight Regional Leagues in total with 12 teams playing in each and the leagues are made up as follows:
- Eastern Region Women’s Football League Premier Division
- Southern Region Women’s Football League Premier Division
- South West Regional Women’s Football League Premier Division
- West Midlands Regional Women’s Football League Premier Division
- East Midlands Regional Women’s Football League Premier Division
- North East Regional Women’s Football League Premier Division
- North West Women’s Regional Football League Premier Division
- London and South East Women’s Regional Football League Premier Division
Each of those leagues feeds directly into their corresponding FA Women’s National League Division One group at Level 4 in the pyramid. The pyramid structure connecting regional football to the national tiers was formally established in 1998 and each Regional League has its own Premier Division at its summit, which is the division that matters for promotion purposes.
At Level 5 and below, clubs are very much operating on a semi-professional or amateur basis, with players at this level more than likely paying subscriptions for the right to play, rather than receiving wages for doing so. The Regional League Premier Divisions are the gateway to the national structure.