The Belarusian Premier League or the Vyšejšaja Liha or the Vysheyshaya Liga ( be, Вышэйшая ліга, russian: Высшая лига, "Top League") is the top division of professional

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 ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

, and is organized by the

Belarusian Football Federation The Football Federation of Belarus (BFF; be, Беларуская федэрацыя футбола, Biełaruskaja Fiederacyja Futboła; russian: Белорусская федерация футбола, Belorusskaya federatsiya futbola) is the ...

. The number of teams in the competition has varied over the years from as high as 17 (1992–93 season) to as low as 11 (2012). As of 2016, the league included 16 teams. Each team plays every other team twice during the course of the season. At the end of the season, the two teams with the fewest points are automatically relegated to the Belarusian First League, while the third worst team plays a promotion-relegation playoff against the third best team from the second tier. The top two teams from the Belarusian First League automatically win promotion to the Premier League. Shakhtyor Soligorsk are the current champions, after winning their second championship title in

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

History

The Belarusian Premier League was organized in

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

. The first participants were: Dinamo Minsk, the only Belarusian side in the former

Soviet Top League The Soviet Top League, known after 1970 as the Higher League (russian: Чемпионат СССР по футболу: Высшая лига), served as the top division of Soviet Union football from 1936 until 1991. The professional top level ...

, five teams from the lower tiers of the Soviet league system and represented other five regional centers of Belarus, and ten teams who were previous competitors in the Belarusian SSR First League. After the league creation, it was decided to change its schedule from a Soviet-style summer season to a European-style winter season. In 1995, the winter season experiment was proven unsuccessful due to poor weather and field conditions in Belarus in the late autumn and early spring. The season was changed back to summer. Every season since 1996 has been played in the summer. Throughout the 2000s, the number of competing teams has changed several times. 2012 season was played with only 11 teams due to last minute withdrawal of

Partizan Minsk FC Partizan Minsk ( be, ФК Партызан Мінск) was a Belarusian football club based in Minsk. History The club was founded as MTZ-RIPO Minsk in 2002 as a merger of two Minsk teams from the Second League ( Traktor Minsk, a club wi ...

. In its earliest years, the league was dominated by Dinamo Minsk, who won the league five times in a row between 1992 and 1995. During the next ten seasons, seven different teams finished as champions: Slavia Mozyr (1996 as MPKC Mozyr, 2000), Dinamo Minsk (1997, 2004), Dnepr-Transmash Mogilev (1998), BATE Borisov (1999, 2002), Belshina Bobruisk (2001),

Gomel Gomel (russian: Гомель, ) or Homiel ( be, Гомель, ) is the administrative centre of Gomel Region and the second-largest city in Belarus with 526,872 inhabitants (2015 census). Etymology There are at least six narratives of the o ...

(2003), Shakhtyor Soligorsk (2005). Since 2006, BATE Borisov has dominated the league, winning 13 championships in a row (2006–2018). In March 2020, due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, all the other football leagues in Europe were postponed, and by the end of the month, the Belarusian Premier League was the only top-flight league in the continent that was still playing. Due to this, the league gained substantially increased viewership from abroad, with fans from all over the world watching the games online, due to the league being the only significant professional football available; the league signed new television rights deals with networks from countries including Russia and India. Matches were also streamed on the Belarusian Football Federation's

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channel. British betting companies also offered odds for the various matches, as the league's profile, previously relatively unknown outside of the country, grew a larger audience due to sporting inactivity elsewhere.

Premier League in 2022

Soviet era champions

*1922: Minsk (city team) *1923: ''Unknown'' *1924: Minsk (city team) *1925: ''Unknown'' *1926: Bobruisk (city team) *1927: ''Unknown'' *1928: Gomel (city team) *1929–32: ''Unknown'' *1933: Gomel (city team) *1934: BVO (Minsk) *1935: BVO (Minsk) *1936: BVO (Minsk) *1937: Dinamo (Minsk) *1938: Dinamo (Minsk) *1939: Dinamo (Minsk) *1940:

DKA Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is a potentially life-threatening complication of diabetes mellitus. Signs and symptoms may include vomiting, abdominal pain, deep gasping breathing, increased urination, weakness, confusion and occasionally loss of ...

(Minsk) *1941–44: ''Unknown'' *1945: Dinamo (Minsk) *1946:

ODO Odo or ODO may refer to: People * Odo, a given name; includes a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Franklin Odo (born 1939), Japanese-American historian * Seikichi Odo (1927–2002), Japanese karateka * Yuya Odo (born 1990), J ...

(Minsk) *1947:

Torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, su ...

(Minsk) *1948: Traktor MTZ (Minsk) *1949: Traktor MTZ (Minsk) *1950:

(Minsk) *1951: Dinamo (Minsk) *1952:

(Minsk) *1953: Spartak (Minsk) *1954: ODO (Pinsk) *1955: FSM (Minsk) *1956: Spartak (Minsk) *1957: Sputnik (Minsk) *1958: Spartak (Bobruisk) *1959: Minsk (city team) *1960: Sputnik (Minsk) *1961: Volna (Pinsk) *1962:

(Minsk) *1963: Naroch' (Molodechno) *1964:

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(Minsk) *1965:

(Minsk) *1966:

(Minsk) *1967:

(Minsk) *1968: Sputnik (Minsk) *1969:

(Minsk) *1970:

(Zhodino) *1971:

(Zhodino) *1972: Stroitel' (Bobruisk) *1973: Stroitel' (Bobruisk) *1974: BATE (Borisov) *1975: Dinamo (Minsk) *1976: BATE (Borisov) *1977: Sputnik (Minsk) *1978: Shinnik (Bobruisk) *1979: BATE (Borisov) *1980:

(Zhodino) *1981:

(Zhodino) *1982:

(Mogilev) *1983: Obuvschik (Lida) *1984: Orbita (Minsk) *1985: Obuvschik (Lida) *1986: Obuvschik (Lida) *1987: Shinnik (Bobruisk) *1988: Sputnik (Minsk) *1989: Obuvschik (Lida) *1990: Sputnik (Minsk) *1991: Metallurg (Molodechno)

Champions and top scorers

Performances

Performance by club

All-time table

:''As of end of

season.'' #For clubs that have been renamed, their name at the time of their most recent season in the Premier League is given. The current members are listed in bold. #Includes 2002 championship play-off, 2004 relegation play-off, 14 games of Dinamo-93 in 1998 season, and 15 games of Torpedo Minsk in 2019 season. #For the purposes of this table, each win is worth 3 points. The three-points system was adopted in fall 1995 season.

Player of the year

Belarusian Premier League Player of the year is an annual award given by a sports newspaper Pressball.

Reserves League

An annual league competition is organized for the reserve teams of Premier League clubs since 2001. This tournament was won by the reserves of Dinamo Minsk (9 titles),

(2 titles), Shakhtyor Soligorsk (2 titles), BATE Borisov (1 title), Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino (1 title) and

Dnepr Mogilev FC Dnepr Mogilev ( be, ФК Дняпро Магілёў, ''FK Dniapro Mahilyow''; russian: ФК Днепр Могилёв) is a Belarusian association football, football team, playing in the city of Mogilev. Their home stadium is Spartak Stadium ...

(1 title).

Notes

References

External links

Official website

Belarusian Football Federation

- List of Champions {{Soviet republican level football championships 1

Sports leagues established in 1992 1992 establishments in Belarus

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 ...

Professional sports leagues in Belarus