NIFL Premiership

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NIFL Premiership
Full name Northern Ireland Football League Premiership
abbreviation IFAP
Association Irish Football Association
First edition 1890
hierarchy 1st League
Teams 12
master Linfield FC
Record champions Linfield FC (54)
Current season 2019/20

The NIFL Premiership or Danske Bank Premiership - formerly known as the Irish Premier League , Irish Football League , Irish League and Irish Football Association Premiership - is the top division in Northern Irish football. It is not to be confused with the League of Ireland , the top division of the Republic of Ireland .

The NIFL Premiership is considered the second oldest national league in the world. It was founded a week before the Scottish Football League , but de facto - and also in name - initially only had a regional expansion. Apart from that, only the English Football League is older.

history

The league was founded in 1890 as the Belfast and District League . Accordingly, the member associations came before and until 1902 all from what would later become Northern Ireland - most of them from Belfast - or the neighboring county of Donegal . Only later expanded to the Irish League , it was after the Irish division in 1921, again without clubs from the south, to the Northern Irish League, but kept the name.

In 2003, the Irish Football Association took control of the top division and renamed it the Irish Premier League (IPL). A year later they took over the management of the other two leagues and renamed them IFA Intermediate First and Second Division. The Irish Premier League comprised 16 teams between 2003 and 2008 as the Irish Premier League, while the IFA Intermediate First and Second Divisions each had 12 teams.

In 2013, the Irish Football Association handed over the administration of the Premiership and the championship of the newly founded Northern Ireland Football League. The new championship was renamed the NIFL Premiership.

Reorganization of the league

With the beginning of the 2008/09 season, the Northern Irish league system was reorganized again. The previous Irish Premier League was renamed the IFA Premiership and reduced from 16 to 12 teams. The decision on the applications to participate in the IFA Premiership, which started playing in August 2008, was made on May 13, 2008 by the IFA Executive Committee on the basis of a points system that took into account several factors of the individual clubs (including sporting Success, finance, infrastructure). In addition to Armagh City (relegated) and Larne FC, who had waived a registration for the IFA Premiership, the previous Premier League clubs Portadown, Donegal Celtic and Limavady United were then not allowed to participate in the top division.

While Limavady United had already been denied eligibility to play in the IFA Premiership before the decision of the IFA Licensing Committee, Portadown's application for admission to the new League House was rejected due to late submission. Donegal Celtic FC, however, missed participation in the IFA Premiership due to the insufficient number of points according to the selection system mentioned above. The appeals of the clubs concerned against the decision of the IFA license committee were subsequently rejected by the IFA Appeals Chamber.

However, the most recent league reform also affected the two sub-divisions. The previous Intermediate First Division was then enlarged as the IFA Championship with the start of the 2008/09 season to 17 clubs, but a year later it was reduced to a total of 14 clubs under the new name "IFA Championship 1". The previous Intermediate Second Division, however, initially comprised 12 clubs under the name IFA Interim League, but was then expanded to 15 clubs at the beginning of the 2009/10 season - now as "IFA Championship 2".

Contrary to the initial reports that the promotion and relegation mode between the leagues should be suspended for the first two years of the new league format, promotions and relegations between the leagues are now planned from the start. A binding regulation for promotions and relegations to and from the IFA Premiership, which provides for both direct promotion and relegation as well as a play-off mode between the penultimate in the IFA Premiership and the runner-up in the IFA Championship, was made by set by the IFA on June 17, 2008.

Game mode

With the start of the 2008/09 season, a season in the NIFL Premiership now comprises 38 game days instead of the previous 30 game days. After the 33rd match day, the league is divided into different game groups, a championship round and a relegation round, each of which includes the six teams from the upper and lower halves of the table. According to this game mode, which is based on the game system of the Scottish Premier League , each club competes once against the five other clubs from the same group in the remaining match days. The final table rank is calculated separately at the end of the season depending on the table half, so that there is no longer any overlap with the other game group. Thus, at the end of the season, for example, the seventh placed can have more points than the sixth placed.

Members in the 2019/20 season

The following teams will play for the Northern Irish Championship in the 2019/20 season :

Previous masters

(a)The four championships between 1915 and 1919 were unofficial competitions that were only held between 6 teams from Belfast each, as the official championship was interrupted because of the First World War.

Record champions

The previous 117 championships were divided among twelve clubs as follows:

rank society number
1. Linfield FC 53
2. Glentoran FC 23
3. Belfast Celtic 14th
4th Crusaders FC 7th
5. Lisburn Distillery 1st 6th
6th Cliftonville FC 1 5
7th Portadown FC 4th
8th. Glenavon FC 3
9. Ards FC 1
Coleraine FC 1
Derry City 2 1
Queen's Island 1
1Cliftonville and Lisburn Distillery share the 1906 championship . Both clubs finished the season tied. The association started a play-off, which ended in a draw after extra time. Since the replay also ended in a draw after extra time, the association declared both teams to be champions.
2Derry City has emerged in the 1970s from the former Irish League and since the 1980s, a member of the League of Ireland , the League of Irish Republic .

UEFA five-year ranking

Placement in the UEFA five-year ranking ( previous year's ranking in brackets ). The abbreviations CL and EL after the country coefficients indicate the number of representatives in the 2019/20 season of the Champions League and the Europa League .

Status: end of the European Cup season 2018/19

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Brian Weir: National Championships: Ireland (1890-1900) , in: 11, magazine for international football history and statistics No. 4 (edited by IFFHS ), Wiesbaden 1986, page 76
  2. ↑ Final tables ibid, pages 76 ff .; of the eight founding clubs , only Milford FC was not from Belfast
  3. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives:@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.irishpremierleague.com
  4. ↑ Larne and Limavady to miss out. BBC Sport , April 21, 2008, accessed January 16, 2013 .
  5. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives:@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.irishpremierleague.com
  6. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives:@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.irishpremierleague.com
  7. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives:@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.irishpremierleague.com
  8. ^ IFA League to have ups and downs. BBC Sport , May 14, 2008, accessed January 16, 2013 .
  9. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives:@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.irishpremierleague.com
  10. ↑ UEFA rankings for club competitions. In: UEFA. Retrieved July 14, 2019 .