The 2012 A Lyga, also known as ''General Financing A Lyga'' for sponsoring purposes, was the 23rd season of the

A Lyga The A Lyga is the top division of professional football in Lithuania. The A Lyga is an abbreviation of Aukščiausia lyga meaning Highest League. It is organized by Lithuanian Football Federation LFF ( lt, Lietuvos Futbolo Federacija). The Aukš� ...

, the top-tier

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

league of

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

. The season started on 10 March 2012 and ended on 11 November 2012. Ekranas were the defending champions.

Changes from 2011

The league changed its number of teams for the third time in a row, reducing it from twelve teams in

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

to ten sides. As a consequence, the schedule expanded from 33 to 36 matches per team, which each team playing every other team four times in total, twice at home and twice away.

Teams

On 2 February 2012, the

Lithuanian Football Federation The Lithuanian Football Federation (LFF) ( lt, Lietuvos futbolo federacija) is the governing body of football in Lithuania. The Federation is responsible for football development in the country and for the national teams, including the Lithuania ...

announced the teams which had passed the licensing criteria for the 2012 season. Among them were the best eight teams of the 2011 season, eleventh-placed

FK Atlantas FK Atlantas was a Lithuanian football team from the port city of Klaipėda. The club's name has changed several times. It was established in 1962 as ''Granitas'', and became ''PSK Aras'' in 1993. Since 1996, when FK Sirijus Klaipėda was abso ...

from

Klaipėda Klaipėda (; ; german: Memel; pl, Kłajpeda; russian: Клайпеда; sgs, Klaipieda) is a city in Lithuania on the Baltic Sea coast. The capital of the eponymous county, it is the third largest city and the only major seaport in Lithuan ...

and 2011 First League champions FK REO Vilnius. Tenth-placed side

FBK Kaunas Kauno futbolo ir beisbolo klubas, commonly known as FBK Kaunas, was a Lithuanian football club from the city of Kaunas. History Banga Kaunas (1960–1993) Originally the team was founded in 1960 as Banga Kaunas and played its first three years ...

were only granted a First League licence, while

FK Mažeikiai FK Mažeikiai was a Lithuanian football club from city of Mažeikiai. History From 1992 in Mažeikiai was founded new club ROMAR – an acronym for Romas Marcinkevičius, main investor of the club. Under Marcinkevičius club begun its r ...

and FC Klaipėda did not apply for a licence in any of the top two Lithuanian football leagues. In July 2012, LFF banned REO from registering new players due to the club's debts to referees. On 21 July 2012, REO failed to appear on the match against Ekranas, and the game was awarded 3–0 to Ekranas with REO receiving a fine of 6000 Lithuanian Litas. REO have withdrawn from the competition in August 2012, after they were unable to attract investors. Since they have played more than half of matches in the season, according to the LFF rulebook, those matches were considered valid and all REO's upcoming matches were awarded 3–0 to their opponents.

Changes from 2011

Teams

Stadiums and locations

League table

Results

First half of season

Second half of season

Top goalscorers

References