Exciting New Competition - the International Women’s Club Championships

The Japanese are building on the energy of their 2011 World Cup victory and their second-place finish at the London 2012 Olympics to launch a new and important event on the women's football calendar. The inaugural Mobcast Cup International Women’s Club Championship hosts four of the most powerful clubs on the planet, who will battle for the title of Women's Club World Cup Champions in November 2012.

Source: IWCC

The teams include reigning UEFA Champions League winners Olympique Lyonnais Feminin (France); Australian Champions, Canberra United, who went undefeated in the 2011/12 Westfield W-League season; and two teams from Japan including INAC Kobe, the winner of the Plenus Nadeshiko League 2012 (the Japanese women's league) and NTV Beleza, the winner of the Plenus Nadeshiko League Cup 2012.

The IWCC is filling a void where there is no women's equivalent of the men's FIFA Club World Cup, where the continental club champions from across the world battle it out for the title. The JFA are experienced in hosting this type of event, most recently they executed the men's FIFA Club World Cup in 2011, with FC Barcelona winning the trophy. Japan will also host the men's 2012 edition in December. The Japan Football Association (JFA) intends to continue the IWCC as an annual event, with invitations to the world's best clubs.

Look for the matches, featuring some of the world's best players, to be fast, skill-full and tough. Olympique Lyonnais features many French National Team players, who were semi-finalists at both the WWC 2011 and the Olympics 2012. The Japanese club teams boasts some of the world's best players, with World Cup Champions and Olympic silver-medalists in their line-up.

The organization of the event hopes to bring fans of women's soccer together and increase clubs' international presence. The promotional strategy outside of Japan doesn't seem obvious yet, but may be more clear as the tournament unfolds. The Cup final will be broadcast live on TV in Japan. The tournament website is only in the Japanese language. The JFA-Nadeshiko Twitter is posting tournament updates in Japanese. Twitter followers can use the hashtags #IWCC or #MobcastCup to get updates from fan postings in English.

Mobcast is the presenting sponsor, with Asics and Nikon as supporting sponsors.

Prize money to the winning team is purported to be $60,000.







Source: IWCC, Canberra United, Olympique Lyonnais.