The Iraqi Premier Division League ( ar, دوري الدرجة الممتازة العراقي) is the second-highest division of the

Iraqi football league system The Iraqi football league system, also known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs in Iraq. The system has a hierarchical format with promotion and relegation between leagues at differ ...

after the Iraq Stars League. The league is contested by 22 clubs and is operated by the Iraq Football Association (IFA). It will be governed by the

Iraqi Pro League Association The Iraqi Pro League Association ( ar, رابطة دوري المحترفين العراقي; ) is a sports association responsible for administering the two professional football leagues in Iraq, the Iraq Stars League and, from the 2024–25 se ...

from the 2024–25 season. Each season, the two top-finishing teams in the Premier Division League are automatically promoted to the Stars League. The four lowest-finishing teams are relegated to First Division League. The number of clubs in the league have changed throughout history, most recently in the 2023–24 season, when the number of clubs decreased from 24 to 22 and the competition's name was changed from First Division League to Premier Division League. In the

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

season,

Al-Minaa Al-Minaa Sports Club ( ar, نادي الميناء الرياضي, lit=Port Sports Club) is an Iraqi multi-sport club based in Al-Maqal, Basra that participates in the Iraq Division One, the second tier of Iraqi football. It is one of the mo ...

won the title and were promoted alongside runners-up

Amanat Baghdad Amanat Baghdad Sport Club ( ar, نادي أمانة بغداد‎ الرياضي, lit=Mayoralty of Baghdad) is a football team based in Karkh District, Baghdad, Iraq, that competes in the Iraq Division One, the second tier of Iraqi football. For ...

. Thus, Al-Minaa was considered the record holder in the tournament (won 3 titles).

League structure

In November 2020, The Iraq FA announced that the number of teams will decrease from 28 to 24 in total starting from 2021 to 2022 season. To make these changes possible, the Iraq FA announced that in 2020–21 season, The top teams in each group are directly promoted to the top-tier, while 8 teams in total are directly relegated to third-tier. On April 8, 2023, the promotion and relegation mechanism was changed, and the Football Association announced the promotion of the winning team in each group directly to the top-tier, and the relegation of the last two teams in the standings in each group to the third-tier, as a result, two teams are promote and 4 teams are relegate.

Competition name

Name history

In the media

Iraqi Premier Division League is called in the media by the name of Dawri Al-Madhaleem (Oppressed League), because the media, the

Football Association The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world an ...

, and the Referees Committee do not care about it, and the teams that play in it suffer from poor financing, and their stadiums are in a bad shape. However, the league includes very talented players, and the competition in it is so strong that it exceeds the competition in the Stars League.

List of champions

Multiple winners

References

External links

Iraq Football Association
{{AFC second leagues Football leagues in Iraq Second level football leagues in Asia Sports leagues established in 1974 sv:Irakiska Division 1