Kansallinen Ykkönen (, National First/One) is the second highest division of women's football in Finland. It is overseen by the Suomen Palloliitto (Football Association of Finland). Teams in Kansallinen Ykkönen can gain promotion to the top-tier Kansallinen Liiga or be relegated to the third-tier Naisten Kakkonen. At the conclusion of the 2025 season, Ilves gained promotion to the Kansallinen Liiga as champions of the Kansallinen Ykkönen. Conversely, RoPS was relegated to the Naisten Kakkonen at the conclusion of the 2025 season.
History The league was founded in 1984 as the Naisten I divisioona (Women's Division 1). The league was preceded by the Naisten perussarja (Women's Base Series), which played during 1973–1980, and the Naisten aluesarja (Women's Regional Series), which played during 1981–1983. Naisten I divisioona was renamed “Naisten Ykkönen” in 1996. Naisten Ykkönen was renamed "Kansallinen Ykkönen" in 2025.
The start of the 2020 Naisten Ykkönen season was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and there was some concern early on that the season may need to be cancelled. However, the concerns were not realized and on 15 May 2020, the Football Association of Finland announced that the 2020 Naisten Ykkönen season would be played with a modified format, a single round-robin series (11 matches) and three regional blocks of four teams, played as a double round-robin series (6 matches), for a total of 17 rounds.
Format Kansallinen Ykkönen comprises ten teams in the regular season. The teams play in a double round-robin series for a total of 18 rounds. After this the top four teams go into a six team promotion/relegation single round-robin series with the bottom two teams of Kansallinen Liiga. The two top ranked teams of the series remain in/are promoted to Kansallinen Liiga the next season, while the bottom four remain in/are relegated to Kansallinen Ykkönen. The bottom six Kansallinen Ykkönen teams play a single round-robin relegation round series, after which the worst placed team gets relegated to Naisten Kakkonen, while the second worst-rated team goes into a two legged play-off against the best placed Naisten Kakkonen team. In total, one to four teams are changed from one season to the next.
2026 season Teams 2026 TN is the standard Finnish abbreviation for artificial turf () ClubLocationHome groundHead coachEsbo Bollklubb (EBK)EspooKeski-Espoon urheilupuisto Arber IstrefiFC HonkaEspooTapiolan urheilupuisto Peetu LepistöFC KTPKotkaArto Tolsa Areena Jari-Pekka GummerusFC LahtiLahtiLahden kisapuisto Teemu VirtanenHJK AkatemiaHelsinkiTöölö Football Stadium Jan BergHämeenlinnan Jalkapalloseura (HJS)HämeenlinnaPulleri TN 1 Peter SampoOulu Nice Soccer (ONS)OuluCastrén Tapio HaapaniemiPallokerho Keski-Uusimaa (PKKU)KeravaHyrylän urheilukeskus Panu TurpeinenTurun Palloseura (TPS)TurkuTurun Urheilupuiston yläkenttä Silja LukkarinenJyväskylän Pallokerho (JyPK)JyväskyläViitaniemi TN Robert Mitchell Source: Suomen Palloliitto
References Content in this article is translated from the existing Finnish Wikipedia article at :fi:Kansallinen Ykkönen; see its history for attribution.
External links Naisten Ykkönen on the Suomen Palloliitto site