The Indian Women's League's 2021-22 season is slated to begin on Friday, with PIFA Sports FC taking on Kickstart FC at the Capital Ground and SSB Women FC taking on Hans Women FC at the 7th Battalion Ground.

The Indian Arrows Women's Team, AIFF's developmental side composed of the game's youthful and rising players, will also make their IWL debut this season, taking against Sirvodem SC at the Kalinga Stadium on the same day.

The IWL will include 66 matches, with 11 teams competing against one another. The teams will
compete in a round-robin format, with each team facing the other once, with the team with the most points at the end of the season being proclaimed champions.

The defending champions, Gokulam Kerala FC, will kick off their campaign on April 16 against
Odisha Police in the Capital round, having won the previous edition of the IWL in Bengaluru in
2020.

History of women’s football league:

Praful Patel, president of the AIFF, announced on April 21, 2016, that a women's football league would begin in October with six clubs to be determined, with the intention of expanding to eight teams by 2017.

AIFF held a workshop on the India women's national team and the projected women's football league just over two months later, on July 5, 2016.

The workshop was attended by five Indian Super League clubs (Delhi Dynamos, Chennaiyin FC, Kerala Blasters, FC Pune City, and Atletico de Kolkata) as well as three I-League teams (Bengaluru FC, Aizawl
FC, and Mumbai FC). It was stated that the league will have eight teams, with two additional berths selected by apre-qualification round.

The preliminary rounds of the AIFF will begin on October 17th, with ten teams divided into two
groups of five, with the winner qualifying for the national finals.