National Premier Leagues Western Australia

National Premier Leagues Western Australia

Country	Australia
Founded	1896
Number of teams	12
Level on pyramid	2
Relegation to	State League 1
Domestic cup(s)	FFA Cup WA State Challenge Cup
Current premiers	2015 Bayswater City
Most championships	Perth SC (Azzurri, Italia) (22 titles)
Website	http://www.footballwest.com.au/
2015 National Premier Leagues

The National Premier Leagues Western Australia is a regional Australian semi-professional soccer league comprising teams from Western Australia. The league name is often abbreviated to NPL Western Australia or NPL WA. As a subdivision of the National Premier Leagues, the league is sits at the highest level of the Western Australian league system (Level 2 of the overall Australian league system). The competition is administered by Football West, the governing body of the sport in the state. In 2014, the league, formally known as the Football West State League Premier Division was rebranded into what exists today.

History

Several of the clubs currently playing in the league were formed as the soccer arm of cultural associations of recently migrated Australians, with certain teams having associations with particularly nationalities e.g. Swan Italian Club (now Swan United), Bayswater Inter (now Bayswater City) and Perth Italia (now Perth SC) with Italian Australians, Morley Windmills with Dutch Australians, Floreat Athena with Greek Australians, Benfica United (now Fremantle Spirit) with Portuguese Australians, Inglewood Kiev (now Inglewood United) with Ukrainian Australians, North Perth Croatia (now Western Knights) and Cockburn City with Croatian Australians, Shamrock Rovers with Irish Australians, Dianella White Eagles with Serbian Australians and Stirling Macedonia (now Stirling Lions) with Macedonian Australians. In 1994 clubs were forced by the sport's governing body to remove all references to ethnicities from their names, which resulted in several name changes. It is only recently that clubs have begun to be based geographically, with Mandurah City and ECU Joondalup recently established clubs.

The West Australian National Training Centre included a team for the 2011-2013 seasons. They did not play for competition points, and were mostly used for development of the upcoming youth players.

Current Format

In 2013 Football Federation of Australia introduced the new second tier competition for football in Australia, the National Premier Leagues. In 2014 Football West then reorganised the former State Premier League league into the National Premier Leagues Western Australia conference and the State League (Division One and Division Two). The NPL WA competition fields a Senior first team, as well as youth teams in the U20, U18, U16, U15, U14, U13 and U12 age groups. The Perth Glory FC Youth team competes in the Senior category - effectively as Perth Glory's reserve side - and has additional age restrictions.^[1]

There is a freeze in promotion and relegation between the NPL and the State League Division 1 until the end of the 2015 season, as there are plans for an expansion of teams in the NPL WA competition.^[1]

Clubs

Honours

¹ after championship playoff.

² after zone playoff.

³ round-robin format.

^U undefeated league season

References :^{[3] [4]}

References

External links