Ardal Leagues


The Ardal Leagues is a football league in Wales. It has amateur/ semi-professional status clubs and sits at the third level of the Welsh football league system. The first year of its operation will be 2020–21 with the Football Association of Wales owning and administering the tier 3 leagues for the first time. These changes follow from a review of the Welsh football pyramid. To be eligible clubs need to meet the criteria for FAW tier 3 certification.
The leagues is split into two leagues, covering Northern and Southern Wales. Both Northern and Southern leagues have two regionally-based sections of sixteen clubs each:
The winners of each league will be promoted to either the Cymru North or the Cymru South as long as they meet the FAW's tier 2 certification criteria. Subject to also meeting these criteria, the four runners-up clubs will enter play-off matches with two of the clubs also gaining promotion.
The Ardal Leagues structure replaces the former tier 3 leagues: Welsh Football League Division One, Mid Wales Football League Division One, Welsh Alliance League Division One and the Welsh National League Premier Division, leagues based in South Wales, Mid Wales, North West Wales and North East Wales respectively.
Relegation from the Ardal Leagues will be to six local tier 4 leagues. These leagues are run by each of the Area Associations of Welsh football, the West Wales Football Association, the South Wales Football Association, the Gwent County Football Association, the Central Wales Football Association, the North East Wales Football Association and the North Wales Coast Football Association.

Ardal League teams

On 10 July 2020 the FAW confirmed the 64 teams in the new tier 3 leagues. In an attempt to avoid dividing the current Mid-Wales teams across all four leagues, the North-East league contains a large contingent of the Mid-Wales teams. The North-West league contains the sides near the North Wales coast. After confirmation of their inclusion STM Sports announced on 27 July that they had folded, leaving only 15 sides in the South West league.

2020–21 season

Ardal NE

For the 2020–21 season 93 clubs applied for FAW tier 3 Certification. 84 clubs were successful in their applications.