The Singapore football league system organizes

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

leagues in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. Association football arrived in the city during the British colonial era. The first ever Nation's cup tournament was held in 1892. Football tournaments continued thereafter.

History

The

Singapore Premier League The Singapore Premier League, commonly abbreviated as SPL, officially known as the AIA Singapore Premier League for sponsorship reasons, is a men's professional football league sanctioned by the Football Association of Singapore (FAS), which re ...

, formerly known as the S.League, was introduced in 1996 to replace the Semi-Professional

FAS Premier League The Football Association of Singapore Premier League was a semi-professional football league competition held in Singapore between 1988 and 1995. The Premier League succeeded the National Football League Division One as the top tier of the Singapor ...

. It is the first Professional football tournament in Singapore where players work under a full-time contract. The

Prime League The Prime League was the reserve and youth team soccer league of Singapore's S.League. Teams involved in the league are primarily made up of youth players from the S.League clubs. The Prime League was founded in 1997. S.League clubs are required ...

was introduced in 1997 as the reserve team of the Premier Division. It is more or less a professional youth league and youth players who excel there can be promoted to the first team. After the professional league, the

Singapore Football League The Singapore Football League (SFL) is a semi-professional football tournament for clubs that are affiliated to the Football Association of Singapore. It makes up the second and third tier of football in Singapore after the professional Singapor ...

(SFL) is played for clubs associated with the FAS. It makes up the next tier after the professional league and includes two divisions. The SFL Qualification tournament, Singapore Island Wide League or the IWL is the next tier for newly registered

Football Association of Singapore The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) is the governing body responsible for the administration of football in Singapore. Established in 1892 as the Singapore Football Association (SFA), it is the oldest football association in all of As ...

clubs compete against each other to gain promotion to the SFL. In 2018, the Prime League was dissolved, making the then called NFL the next tier followed by the IWL. After the FAS Leagues, the most competitive football tournament is the amateur tournament known as the Cosmopolitan Football League, or the cosmoleague. It consists of mainly expat players in Singapore and teams from the cosmoleague teams are known to have beaten the SFL and IWL clubs in pre-season friendlies. However teams do not gain promotion to IWL or SFL as the tournament is not organised by the FAS.

Current system

Past structure

References

{{Reflist Football in Singapore