Category Primera A

	Liga BetPlay Dimayor
First edition	1948
hierarchy	1st League
Teams	20th
master	Junior; (9th title)
Record champions	Atlético Nacional (16)
Record scorer	Sergio Galvan (224)
Website	www.dimayor.com.co
Qualification for	Copa Libertadores ; Copa Sudamericana ; Superliga de Colombia
	↓ Categoría Primera B

A national Colombian football championship has only been held since 1948. The introduction of the professional league, now called Categoría Primera A , was initiated by the then President of the Colombian Football Association, Alfonso Senior Quevedo , who was also the first president of Los Millonarios . Before that there were only regional competitions, of which those in the capital Bogotá and Barranquilla deserved the most attention.

The official name of the championship organized by the professional association División Mayor del Fútbol Profesional Colombiano was from 1990 to 2009 after a tobacco company acting as a sponsor Copa Mustang . For the season 2010 the name of the new sponsor, the beverage brand was Postobón on League Postobón changed. Since the 2015 season , the league has been named after a beer brand, Liga Águila .

history

The championship trophy

The first championship began in August 1948 after the professional association founded as División Mayor del Fútbol Colombiano could be set up as the organizing organization. The first champion was Independiente Santa Fe .

The league originally consisted of ten clubs, but this number varied frequently in the early years. In 1959 the number of clubs stabilized at twelve for four years, in 1963 the number increased to 13 and in 1966 again to 14.

The golden age of the Colombian football championship, known as "el dorado", was between 1949 and 1953, when many top players from abroad played there. Above all, a number of Argentine players - Alfredo Di Stéfano and Adolfo Pedernera at Millonarios are outstanding names here - were to be found in the league, as various arguments in Argentine football at the time motivated many professionals to earn their money abroad. The Colombian league was the only one that accepted these players at the time. The association was punished for this with expulsion from FIFA . This era came to an end with the "Lima Pact", which provided for the return of banned foreigners to their original clubs and the re-admission of Colombia to the world association.

Since 1968, the Colombian championship has been divided into two semi-series championships, as is common in many South American countries today. The first half of the season, held from February to June, is called Apertura in Colombian parlance . the second round, which takes place from July to December, is called Finalización in Colombia - in other South American countries the term Clausura is more common here. After the half-series, a Liguilla , "a small league", of the leading teams was then held until 2000 to determine the participants for the ultimately decisive participants in the championship in a play-off . With the beginning of the game year 2002, this is waived and the semi-series champions are both listed as champions.

In 1991 a professional second division, the Primera B , was launched with 18 members. There has been promotion and relegation between the leagues since 1993. Since 2006 there has been a relegation between the penultimate in the first division and the second in the second division.

The two champions have been playing the Supercup since 2012 . In October 2014, the División Mayor del Fútbol Profesional Colombiano decided to increase the first division to 20 teams, while reducing the second division to 16 teams. This was preceded by a decrease in the number of spectators due to the relegation of many traditional clubs to the second division and the rise of many newly founded teams that do not have a large fan base. The two additional promoters for the 2015 season will be determined in a separate promotion tournament by eight traditional teams from the second division. From the 2015 season there will also be two direct promoters and relegators.

mode

championship

Phase 1

In a league consisting of 20 teams all play against each other once. The “Clasicós”, ie the games with a derby character, will also take place on the tenth match day . For example, these were set in 2019 as follows:

América de Cali - Deportivo Cali

Independiente Santa Fe - Millonarios FC

Atlético Nacional - Independiente Medellín

Atlético Huila - Deportes Tolima

Rionegro Águilas - Envigado FC

Alianza Petrolera - Jaguares de Córdoba

Once Caldas - Deportivo Pasto

Unión Magdalena - Junior

La Equidad - Patriotas

Atlético Bucaramanga - Cúcuta Deportivo

Phase 2

A final round follows the regular season. Since the league was increased to 20 participants, it has mostly consisted of a knockout round, for which the eight best-placed clubs qualify. In the 2019 season, the eight best-placed clubs will play the two finalists in two groups with home and away games, as they did in some cases after 2002 in the so-called Cuadrangulares Semifinals .

Qualification for the continental competitions

Copa Libertadores

Every semi-series champion is automatically qualified for the Copa Libertadores . Two more places will be awarded to the clubs that have the highest after adding up all points and goals in phases 1 and 2 of the first and second semi-series championships. Should a club win both semi-series championships, the second participant in the Libertadores will be selected using the same procedure as the other two participants.

Copa Sudamericana

Three participants in the Copa Sudamericana are determined according to the same scheme as the third Libertadores participant: the three clubs that stand behind him in the overall annual ranking are qualified. A fourth place in the Copa Sudamericana is determined by the cup competition . In the 2014 and 2015 seasons, one of the representatives was chosen by the Superliga de Colombia . Since the 2016 season, however, it has not been possible for the same club to qualify for both continental competitions, as these will be held in parallel from 2017.

Participants in the Categoría Primera A 2019

The following clubs take part in the two half-series of the 2019 season, Apertura and Finalización .

Bogotá (2 stadiums)

Venues of the Liga Águila 2019

team	city	Department	Stadion
Alianza Petrolera	Barrancabermeja	Santander	Villa Zapata
America de Cali	Cali	Valle del Cauca	Pascual Guerrero
Atlético Bucaramanga	Bucaramanga	Santander	Alfonso López
Atlético Huila	Neiva	Huila	Plazas Alcid
Atlético Nacional	Medellin	Antioquia	Atanasio Girardot
Cúcuta Deportivo	Cúcuta	North of Santander	General Santander
Deportes Tolima	Ibagué	Tolima	Murillo Toro
Deportivo Cali	Cali / Palmira	Valle del Cauca	Deportivo Cali ¹
Deportivo Pasto	Pasto	Nariño	Libertad
Envigado FC	Envigado	Antioquia	Polideportivo Sur
Independiente Medellin	Medellin	Antioquia	Atanasio Girardot
Independiente Santa Fe	Bogotá	Bogotá DC	El Campín
Jaguares de Cordoba	Montería	Cordoba	Jaraguay
Junior	Barranquilla	Atlántico	Metropolitano
La Equidad	Bogotá	Bogotá DC	Techo
Millonarios	Bogotá	Bogotá DC	El Campín
Once Caldas	Manizales	Caldas	Palogrande
Patriotas	Tunja	Boyacá	Independencia
Rionegro Águilas	Rionegro	Antioquia	Alberto Grisales
Unión Magdalena	Santa Marta	Magdalena	Sierra Nevada
¹ Deportivo Cali is based in Cali, but the Estadio Deportivo Cali is in the neighboring municipality of Palmira.

The master

Status: 2019-I

rank	society	masterpieces companies	Vizemeister- companies	Years of championships	Years of runner-up championships
1	Atlético Nacional	16	11	1954 , 1973, 1976, 1981, 1991, 1994, 1999, 2005-I, 2007-I , 2007-II , 2011-I , 2013-I , 2013-II , 2014-I , 2015-II and 2017-I	1955 , 1965 , 1971, 1974, 1988, 1990, 1992, 2002-I, 2004-I, 2004-II and 2018-I
2	Millonarios	15th	9	1949 , 1951 , 1952 , 1953 , 1959 , 1961 , 1962 , 1963 , 1964 , 1972, 1978, 1987, 1988, 2012-II and 2017-II	1950 , 1956 , 1958 , 1967 , 1973, 1975, 1984, 1994 and 1995/96
3	America de Cali	14th	7th	1979, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1990, 1992, 1996/97, 2000, 2001, 2002-I, 2008-II and 2019-II	1960 , 1969 , 1987, 1991, 1995, 1999 and 2008-I
4th	Deportivo Cali	9	14th	1965 , 1967 , 1969 , 1970, 1974, 1995/96, 1998, 2005-II and 2015-I	1949 , 1962 , 1968 , 1972, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1985, 1986, 2003-II, 2006-I , 2013-II and 2017-I
5	Junior	9	10	1977, 1980, 1993, 1995, 2004-II, 2010-I , 2011-II , 2018-II and 2019-I	1948 , 1970, 1983, 2000, 2003-I, 2009-I , 2014-I , 2015-II , 2016-I and 2019-II
6th	Independiente Santa Fe	9	5	1948 , 1958 , 1960 , 1966 , 1971, 1975, 2012-I , 2014-II and 2016-II	1963 , 1979, 2005-I, 2013-I and 2017-II
7th	Independiente Medellin	6th	10	1955 , 1957 , 2002-II, 2004-I, 2009-II and 2016-I	1959 , 1961 , 1966 , 1993, 2001, 2008-II , 2012-II , 2014-II , 2015-I and 2018-II
8th	Once Caldas	4th	2	1950 , 2003-I, 2009-I and 2010-II	1998 and 2011-II
9	Deportes Tolima	2	6th	2003-II and 2018-I	1957 , 1981, 1982, 2006-II , 2010-II and 2016-II
10	Deportivo Pasto	1	3	2006-I	2002-II, 2012-I and 2019-I
11	Deportes Quindío	1	2	1956	1953 and 1954
12	Cúcuta Deportivo	1	1	2006-II	1964
13	Boyacá Chicó FC	1	0	2008-I
	Unión Magdalena	1	0	1968
15th	La Equidad	0	3		2007-II , 2010-I and 2011-I
16	Boca Juniors de Cali	0	2		1951 and 1952
	Atlético Huila	0	2		2007-I and 2009-II
18th	Atlético Bucaramanga	0	1		1996/97
	Real Cartagena	0	1		2005-II

Since the champions have been determined for each semi-series since 2002 and the championships are therefore not entirely comparable, the titles up to 2001 and since 2002 are listed separately.