Premiership (Tierrador)
Organising body | National Football League (Premiership) |
---|---|
Founded | 1964 |
Country | Tierrador |
Confederation | UCFA |
Number of teams | 20 (since 2005–06) |
Level on pyramid | 1 |
Relegation to | Čampionóq TFL |
Domestic cup(s) | Qopá Terranóq Qopá Čampionóq |
International cup(s) | UCFA League of Champions UCFA League of Crona |
Current champions | Tawakee (1st title) (2035) |
Most championships | Qapitol Ambaqwe (12 titles each) |
Most appearances | Vinny Hernandez(622) |
Top goalscorer | Vinny Hernandez (516) |
TV partners | QBC/CSPN TBS/UQC TV5 List of broadcasters |
2036 Premiership |
The Football Tierrador Premiership, commonly known simply as Premiership in Tierrador, and officially as Premiership presented by Palmtree Electronics for sponsorship reasons, stylized as Premiership, is the men's top professional football division of the Tierradorian football league system. Administered by Football Tierrador, it is contested by 20 teams, with the three lowest-placed teams at the end of each season being relegated to the NFL Championship and replaced by the top two teams and a play-off winner in that division.
The competition was founded as the FT Premiership in 1945, following the decision from six Top League (which was the top-tier league from 1889 to 1945) clubs to split from the Tierradorian Football League. Despite this decision, the Premiership is still tied to the TFL, with three clubs being promoted and relegated to and from both leagues. The Premiership takes advantage of a lucrative television rights sale to QBC and Television Cinco: from 2026 to 2027, accumulated television rights were worth around $3.1 billion per year, with QBC, TBS, Televisión Cinco, and CSPN securing the domestic rights to broadcast 108, 32 and 20 games, respectively. The Premiership is a corporation where chief executive Yanelí Tangetta is responsible for its management, with the member clubs acting as shareholders. The Premiership (along with most sports leagues in Tierrador) follows an open league system, in which the clubs operate as independent organizations, separate to the league itself. The clubs are responsible for marketing their brand, with the option to include the Premiership branding, though the Premiership cannot overtake any kind of business operations, unless absolutely necessary. As part of the unequal revenue sharing agreement, clubs were apportioned central payment revenues of $3.4 billion in 2035, with Qapitol receiving the most at $164 million. A further $343 million was directed in revenue-sharing payments to NFL clubs.
The Premiership is the most-watched sports league in the world, broadcast in 165 territories to 1 billion homes and a potential TV audience of 7.7 billion people. For the 2029 season, the average Premiership match attendance was at 71,322, the highest average attendance in Crona. Meanwhile, the aggregated attendance across all matches was also the highest of any association football league at 29,508,981, and most stadium occupancies are near capacity. As of 2032, the Premiership is ranked first in the UCFA coefficient rankings based on performances in Cronan competitions over the past five seasons, narrowly ahead of the Alstinian Major League Football. The Tierradorian top-flight has produced the second-highest number of Cronan Cup / UCFA Champions League titles, with a record seven Tierradorian clubs having won seventeen Cronan championships in total. Forty-eight clubs have competed in the Premiership since its inception in 1945. Twenty-two of those clubs have been crowned champions at least once since 1945. Taisgol-Qapitol and S.D. Ambaqwe share the title of most Premierships, winning twelve each. U.D. Tawakee is the current title holder, winning their first Premiership in the 2035 season.
History
1945–1985: Split from TFL
1986–1995: Expansion to 22 competitors
1996–2004: Qapitol Network controversy and revenue sharing reworkings
2005–2012: Sponsorship battles
2013–present
Competition format
Premiership's competition format follows a round-robin format. The season usually takes place from August to May, with matches being played on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays. Member clubs play each other twice, once home and the other away, for a total of 38 matches, over a total of 40 weeks (each club receives two off-weeks). Clubs receive 3 points for victories, 1 point for a draw, and no points for losses. For the 2006 season only, in what was referred to as the stupidest football decision ever made, 1 point was deducted for every loss that a club received. This resulted in Cuervos C.F. winning the Primera Liga for the first time in club history, despite having an overall record of 23–13–2, where they would've had 82 points, but since they lost 2 matches, their point total was reduced to 80 points. Cuervos finished on top of Olímpico de Taisgol, who finished with a record of 24–10–4, where they also would have had 82 points, but would still finish above Cuervos due to Olímpico having 1 more win, however because Olímpico lost 4 matches in the season, their point total was reduced to 78 points, therefore placing them at second place. Because of this, and with strong protest from Olímpico and Internacional de Santiago, the point deduction system was eventually abandoned in June 2006.
Promotion and relegation
The Premiership follows a system of promotion and relegation with the Tierradorian Football League. The three lowest placed teams in the Premiership are relegated to the TFL Championship. The top two teams from the Championship are automatically promoted to the Premiership, with a third team promoted following a series of playoffs involving the third, fourth, fifth and sixth place clubs. From 1945 to 1986, the Premiership was contested by eighteen clubs. In 1986, the league was expanded to twenty-two clubs, following the mass joining of several newly founded clubs. Four of these newly-founded clubs were assigned to the Premiership to balance out the competition, an extremely controversial decision amongst numerous clubs, who believed that the new clubs were getting an easy route into the Premiership and perhaps the UCFA Champions League by simply "getting lucky." Football Tierrador's board of governors simply ignored these complaints. The Premiership was then reduced to twenty clubs in 2006. In 2014, UCFA requested that the Premiership, along with several other Cronan football leagues, be reduced to 18 teams by the 2018 season. This was met with heavy resistance, and even got to the point where Football Tierrador threatened to depart the UCFA. Eventually, the UCFA halted its demands of reduction, and the 2018 season kicked off with twenty clubs, where it has been locked at since then.
Organizational structure
Clubs
Team | Location | First season in Premiership | No. of Premiership seasons | First season of current spell | No. of seasons of current spell | Premiership titles | Most recent title |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Puerto Rosario | Puerto Rosario, Moscakee | 1945 | 66 | 2004 | 20 | 7 | 2012 |
Anloiya | Anloiya, Ulunkheria | 1989 | 24 | 2019 | 5 | 0 | – |
Topaqoí | Topaqoí, Telohakee | 1945 | 72 | 1987 | 37 | 10 | 2021 |
Prairies-Kaligrusky | Kaligrusky, Telohakee | 2036 | 1 | 2036 | 1 | 0 | – |
Ambaqwe | Ambaqwe, Auqali | 1945 | 76 | 2001 | 23 | 12 | 2030 |
Cuervos | Hugo, Qaleqa | 2006 | 18 | 2006 | 18 | 4 | 2023 |
Qapitol | Hacienda, Taisgol | 1945 | 79 | 1945 | 79 | 12 | 2033 |
Olímpico | Valle Oeste, Taisgol | 1962 | 57 | 1990 | 34 | 7 | 2016 |
Platino | Ciudad Platino, Taisgol | 1978 | 23 | 2017 | 7 | 2 | 1999 |
Sevier | Sevier, Ulunkheria | 1993 | 29 | 1996 | 28 | 1 | 1997 |
Norwalk Town | Norwalk, Bogocía | 1951 | 24 | 2021 | 3 | 2 | 1980 |
Prismarine City | Prisamarina, Ulunkheria | 1951 | 68 | 1981 | 43 | 5 | 2000 |
Tawakee | San Cristobál, Tawakee | 1946 | 40 | 2019 | 5 | 1 | 2035 |
Palacio de Oro | Vernaza, Telohakee | 1991 | 20 | 2011 | 13 | 3 | 2034 |
Porvaos City | Porvaos, Porvaos | 1954 | 58 | 1973 | 51 | 0 | – |
Lámparas | Ominasky, Alcosky | 1947 | 70 | 2001 | 23 | 3 | 2003 |
Oaroa | Oaroa, Saukhin Islands | 1994 | 27 | 2036 | 1 | 3 | 2006 |
Mineros | Qabór, Las Rozas | 1967 | 43 | 2023 | 1 | 1 | 1995 |
Guerreros | Sačia, Aracadó | 1977 | 41 | 2023 | 1 | 0 | – |
Winnecomac | Winnecomac, Ulunkheria | 1983 | 7 | 2036 | 1 | 0 | – |
Champions
TBA
Premiership clubs in Crona
TBA
Sponsorship history
TBA