History was made on Sunday when the first ever football match of the league was beamed live on SABC 1 between Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies and Richmond Ladies.
The former won the match 7-0, but at the end of the day football was the winner with several commentators hailing SAFA for keeping good on their promise of starting the League.
There were two other matches earlier in the day when Sasol League National Champions TUT Ladies were trailing 2-0 against First Touch Academy but turned the tables on their opponent and won 4-2, while Golden Ladies were just too good for Thunderbirds, beating them 4-1.
The games took place at the Nike Football Training Centre in Pimville, Soweto on Saturday and Sunday.
President of the South African Football Association (SAFA) Dr Danny Jordaan, who was in attendance over the two days, says this is a good start to something exciting.
“We saw the gap between Sundowns and Richmond Ladies, and you can immediately see that some of these teams don’t have the required facilities, so over time we have to strengthen the playing staff, the management and technical staff of the team and infrastructure. In the meantime, we are centralizing the games so that each team has an equal chance to do well by playing on good surfaces,” said Dr Jordaan.
“So you can see it’s a process that we have to go through but I am particularly impressed with the start of the League, as we saw some quality football from some of the teams – this is an exciting way to start this initiative. And I am confident we will grow from strength to strength – we will get to where want to be, the important thing was to start. I would like to thank everyone who made the effort to ensure all goes well.”
Twenty-three goals have been recorded in just two days of action – with 18 of those coming on Match Day 2. Sundowns were the biggest winners (7-0), followed by Golden Ladies and TUT Ladies.
Match Day 1 saw only three goals in three matches – one match failed to produced a winner, the clash between Bloemfontein Celtic Ladies and University of the Western Cape.
