Football association meets protest from clubs over plans to split women’s league into two divisions

Plans to split the North Wales Women’s Football League into two divisions of seven teams apiece received a mixed reaction from clubs this week.

North East Wales FA general secretary Dave Fawkes presented the idea to club representatives at a meeting on Wednesday.

Mr Fawkes believes having an East and West division will solve the problem of clubs failing to completing their fixtures, as was the case for four of the teams which took part in the single 12-team league last season.

Amlwch Town, NFA, Northop Hall and Pwllheli all played 21 games instead of the scheduled 22.

One of the main problems was long-distance travelling leading to fixture cancellations, an issue Mr Fawkes believes will be considerably eased by a regionalised system.

The current proposal is….

North West

Llangefni Town
Amlwch Town
Trearddur Bay
Llanfairfechan Town
Caernarfon Town
Llanystumdwy
Pwllheli

North East

Corwen
CPD Bellevue
Welshpool Town
Northop Hall
Flint Town United
Denbigh Town
Kinmel Bay

A previous reference to The New Saints wishing to enter a reserve team proved to have no foundation.

However, at Wednesday’s meeting, some clubs voted against the new plan, stating that they would miss out on a lot of away-days and the chance to play good quality sides.

One club complained that being part of the North West would involve meeting no new opponents at all, also claiming a 14-team league would be more competitive and better organised.

Mr Fawkes disagrees, but said another meeting would now be arranged with clubs where the possibility of a new-style Betty Pickering Cup mixing members of the two leagues would open the door to facing new opposition.

He said: “Teams couldn’t complete a 22-game league season so it would not be sensible to move forward with a 26-game season.

“The league cannot proceed with 14 teams as it wouldn’t enable clubs to fulfill league fixtures, Area and FAW cups.

“A meeting is being held on June 21st to discuss a split league East and West with the Betty Pickering Cup played in groups stages so teams from East and West can also play each other.

“This would provide a minimum 20 games.”

The general secretary added: “You can’t fit two pints of water in a 1 pint glass however hard you try. If we had a 26-game league it could require some teams to play 40 matches with cups included. Some with minimal cup involvement couldn’t play 22 last season.”