Primeira Liga
| File:Betandwin topo.gif BWINLIGA's logo | |
| Sport | Football |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1938 |
| No. of teams | 16 |
| Country |  Portugal |
| Most recent champion(s) | F.C. Porto |
The Portuguese Liga (pron. IPA: ['liɣɐ]), currently named BWINLIGA after its main sponsor, is the league competition for Portuguese professional football clubs located at the top of the Portuguese football league system (above the Liga de Honra), making it Portugal's primary football competition.
The Liga is presently contested by sixteen clubs each season, but only five of them have won the title. Currently in its 73rd edition the competition is dominated by the so called "Big Three" (S.L. Benfica, F.C. Porto and Sporting Clube de Portugal), who have a total of 70 titles, with C.F. Os Belenenses and Boavista F.C. sharing the other two.
History
Before the Portuguese football reform of 1938, an experimental competition on a round-basis was already being held — the Primeira Liga (Premier League). Despite that, a Portuguese Championship in a knock-out cup format was the most popular and defined the champion.
Then, with the reform, a round-basis competition was implemented as the most important of the calendar and began defining the Portuguese champion. From 1938 to 2000 the name Campeonato Nacional da Primeira Divisão (National Championship of the First Division), or just Primeira Divisão (First Division) was used. When the LPFP took control of the two nationwide leagues in 1999 it was renamed Campeonato Nacional da Primeira Liga (Premier League National Championship), or simply Primeira Liga (Premier League), and after Galp acquired the naming rights in 2002, SuperLiga Galp Energia. However a four year deal with the Austrian sports betting web portal betandwin.com was announced on 18 August 2005, amid questioning by the other gambling authorities in Portugal (the Santa Casa da Misericórdia and the Portuguese Casinos Association), which claimed to hold the exclusive of legal gambling games in national territory. After holding the name Liga betandwin.com for the 2005/2006 season [1], a name change to BWINLIGA (all caps) was announced on 21 July 2006 [2].
Competition
For the 2006-07 season there are 16 clubs in the Portuguese Liga, down from 18 in the previous season. During the course of a season each club plays the others twice, once at their home stadium and once at their opponent's, for a total of 30 games. At the end of each season, the two lowest placed teams are relegated to the Liga de Honra, and the top two teams from Liga de Honra are promoted to the Portuguese Liga.
Currently, the top three teams in the Liga qualify for the UEFA Champions League. The top two teams go straight into the group phase. The third placed team enters the competition at the third qualifying round, and must survive a two-legged knockout tie in order to enter the group phase. The teams classified in fourth and fifth enter the UEFA Cup together with the winner of the Cup of Portugal. If the winner of the Cup of Portugal is already qualified for the Champions League, or would be qualified for the UEFA Cup by its league position, the runner-up will occupy the spot in the UEFA Cup. If the runner-up is also qualified for European competition through its league position, the spot is given to the 6th-placed team in the Liga.
Portuguese Liga clubs
- Associação Académica de Coimbra
- Sport Clube Beira-Mar
- Clube de Futebol «Os Belenenses»
- Sport Lisboa e Benfica
- Boavista Futebol Clube
- Sporting Clube de Braga
- Clube de Futebol Estrela da Amadora
- Clube Desportivo das Aves
- Clube Desportivo Nacional "da Madeira"
- Club Sport Marítimo
- Associação Naval 1º de Maio
- Futebol Clube Paços de Ferreira
- Futebol Clube do Porto
- Sporting Clube de Portugal "Lisbon"
- União Desportiva de Leiria
- Vitória Futebol Clube "de Setúbal"
Refereeing controversy
Controversy surrounding the refereeing bodies is a constant in Portuguese championships, as a scapegoat to justify poor results or because of poor refereeing decisions. In 2001, Boavista won the championship for the first time but the club was accused of having had favourable refereeing because the president of the club was also the son of the president of the organizing body.
In 2003 the president of Benfica said publicly that it was more important to control the organizing body than to hire a new player, as could be seen by F.C. Porto victories; strangely his team conquered the 2004/05 championship after a 10 year drought when "Apito Dourado" was finally made public.
In 2004, the affair Apito Dourado (Golden Whistle) blew up. Police investigators accused several football personalities of corrupting referees. Included in the list was Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, chairman of F.C. Porto who was caught in telephonic conversations allegedly offering prostitutes to a referee, among other situations. In 2006, and still in the same investigation, the name of Luís Filipe Vieira, chairman of S.L. Benfica was also involved in telephonic conversations with the president of the Portuguese League for Professional Football refusing referees for a Cup of Portugal semi-final. The police choose not to pursuit this, as the other entrants in the semi-final assumed having received the same kind of phone call.
Officially, only two referees have ever been found guilty of tampering with results and banned from activity. One of them was Carlos Guímaro, involved in a case from which F.C. Porto managers were never charged as the judge dropped phone recordings involving them in buying referees for 500 "contos" (2500 euros) as being unconstitutional. He is now pondering pressing charges against the state, claiming that the anti-corruption law under which he was convicted is also unconstitutional.
Going into the final round of the 1958/59 season, F.C. Porto and S.L. Benfica were tied for first place but F.C. Porto had a slight goal advantage (78-22 vs. 71-19). In order to become champion, Benfica needed to win their last match against C.U.F. by four more goals than F.C. Porto would score. With both matches being played simultaneously, F.C. Porto won their match against Torreense by 3-0, scoring their first goal while one adversary was being assisted, in a lack of fair play that was contested by Torreense at the end of the game[verification needed]. Benfica would thus need to win its match by a seven-goal difference, but the club was short of one goal at the end of match time, with the result at 7-1, because F.C. Porto had scored a goal on the last minute, after 2 adversaries had been expelled. Benfica was then awarded 4 minutes of extra time, which together with the six minutes Benfica had purposely entered the field late (and for which Benfica was fined) added to ten minutes that the game ended after the Porto game, during which no goal was scored. During the match, there were three penalty kicks for Benfica, and the second one was considered somewhat dubious by the newspapers at the time; according to the same newspapers, and to the manager of CUF[verification needed], a fourth penalty should have been awarded near the end of the match.
This incident marks the start of what is considered by some fans as the "state years" of Benfica, protected by the government. FC Porto didn't win another championship for 19 years, until 1977, 3 years after the rise of democracy in Portugal.
UEFA Ranking
Current National League Ranking
- 01
La Liga - 02
Serie A - 03
FA Premier League - 04
Ligue 1 - 05
Bundesliga - 06 Liga
- 07
Eredivisie
(see UEFA coefficients full list for more information)
06/07 season current league table
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | ||
| 1 | F.C. Porto | 14 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 32 | 8 | 24 | 37 |
| 2 | Sporting Clube de Portugal | 14 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 22 | 9 | 13 | 32 |
| 3 | S.L. Benfica | 14 | 9 | 2 | 3 | 30 | 13 | 17 | 29 |
| 4 | S.C. Braga | 14 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 21 | 19 | 2 | 24 |
| 5 | C.S. Marítimo | 14 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 16 | 17 | -1 | 22 |
| 6 | U.D. Leiria | 14 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 13 | 15 | -2 | 21 |
| 7 | C.D. Nacional | 14 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 21 | 16 | 5 | 20 |
| 8 | A. Naval 1º de Maio | 14 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 12 | 12 | 0 | 20 |
| 9 | C.F. Os Belenenses | 14 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 15 | 14 | 1 | 20 |
| 10 | F.C. Paços de Ferreira | 14 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 14 | 19 | -5 | 18 |
| 11 | Boavista F.C. | 14 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 17 | 19 | -2 | 16 |
| 12 | C.F. Estrela da Amadora | 14 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 9 | 17 | -8 | 15 |
| 13 | A. Académica de Coimbra | 14 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 18 | 22 | -4 | 13 |
| 14 | Vitória F.C. | 14 | 2 | 3 | 9 | 8 | 22 | -14 | 9 |
| 15 | C.D. Aves | 14 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 10 | 21 | -11 | 8 |
| 16 | S.C. Beira-Mar | 14 | 1 | 5 | 8 | 15 | 30 | -15 | 8 |
P = Matches played; W = Matches won; D = Matches drawn; L = Matches lost; F = Goals for; A = Goals against; GD = Goal difference; Pts = Points. Blue = teams qualified for UEFA Champions League; Green = UEFA Cup; Red, teams relegated
Continental Honours by Liga Players
- 1966 FIFA World Cup Golden Shoe Eusébio
- Most caps for
Morocco national football team Noureddine Naybet Played with Sporting CP 115 Caps
- Most caps for Portugal national football team Luis Figo Played with Sporting CP 129 Caps
List of champions
Total number of titles through time
Top Scorers
Participating Clubs
Includes Campeonato da Liga. Years below refer to the season that ended that year.
See also
External links
- Official Site
- Template:En icon Football results - Portugal football
- zerozero.pt
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