The 2016 Campeonato Cearense de Futebol was the 102nd season of top professional

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in the state of

Ceará Ceará (, pronounced locally as or ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is the eighth-largest Brazilian State by population and the 17th by area. It is also one of the ...

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. The competition began in January and will end in May.

Format

The ten teams are split in two groups, who play a double

round robin Round-robin may refer to: Computing * Round-robin DNS, a technique for dealing with redundant Internet Protocol service hosts * Round-robin networks, communications networks made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology * Round-robin schedu ...

against teams in the same group. The three best in each group advance to the second stage, while the two worst from each group are put in the loser's group. In the loser's group, the four teams play against each other in a double round-robin, and the two worst are relegated. In the second stage, the six teams are split in two groups, who play against the other teams in the same group twice. The two best in each group advance to the final stage. The final stage are playoffs, where the teams are seeded by their performance in the whole championship.

Participating teams

First stage

Group A1

Group A2

References

{{2016 in Brazilian football Cearense

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...