The Spanish football league system consists of several professional, semi-professional and non-professional leagues bound together hierarchically by

promotion and relegation In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

. The top two tiers of the male league pyramid—

Primera División Primera may refer to * Nissan Primera, a car * Primera Air, a former airline * Primera división (disambiguation), multiple top division football leagues * Primera, Texas, a town in Cameron County, Texas * Alí Primera, Venezuelan musician, compos ...

( La Liga) and

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...

—are administered by the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional, a sports association with independent legal status from the

Royal Spanish Football Federation The Royal Spanish Football Federation ( es, Real Federación Española de Fútbol; RFEF) is the governing body of football in Spain. It is based in La Ciudad del Fútbol of Las Rozas, a municipality near Madrid. It was founded on 14 October 1909 ...

(RFEF), the governing body of football in Spain. Conversely, the top two tiers of the women's pyramid (

and Segunda División Pro) are administered by the RFEF. The lower tiers (6th and below for the men's pyramid; 5th and below for the female one) are run by the regional federations. In addition to clubs from

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, and under the purview of the additional provision 17 of the 1990 Law of Sport,

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n clubs affiliated to a Spanish regional federation are allowed to compete in the system. The RFEF allows

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players under contract to a club but who do not normally play in matches for the first team. Reserve teams often include back-up players from the first team, young players who need playing time to i ...

s to compete in the main league system, as is the case in most European domestic leagues. However, reserve teams are not allowed to compete in the same tier as their senior team, and no reserve team has thus competed in the top flight.

Men

La Liga

La Liga is the highest level in the Spanish football league system and is operated by the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional.

Other professional divisions

Segunda División, also called LaLiga SmartBank is the second highest level in the Spanish football league system and is also operated by the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional.

Semi-professional divisions

The

(RFEF) created a new tier to begin in the 2021–22 season placed between the Segunda División and the former Segunda División B which had been created in 1977. The federation officially named the third tier, containing two regionalised groups, the Primera División RFEF. Below the new Primera División RFEF sits the fourth tier, the Segunda División RFEF, roughly corresponding to the format of Segunda B, other than that the new format has five regionalised groups whereas the old system contained only four, other than in its final season,

2020–21 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 ...

, unique both due to the transition into the new system and complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain which led to more teams being included and a complicated format involving 10 localised leagues half the size of the usual groups, followed by 15 sections to determine which teams would go into the second, third, fourth and fifth levels. Following the reorganisation, the Tercera División RFEF is the fifth highest level in the Spanish football league system and is operated by the RFEF and 17 regional federations corresponding to each of the

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(there are 18 groups –

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...

is divided into two due to its size). Prior to 2021, this was known as the Tercera División and was the fourth level, but had the same format. In

the division also had an atypical format of 36 local subgroups followed by a total of 54 subgroups to allocate promotion, playoff and relegation places.

Lower divisions

From level 6, each of the RFEF's 19 regional federations runs its regional league pyramid under its own jurisdiction.

Pyramid table

Evolution of the Spanish league system

^* From 1929 to 1940 the Spanish pyramid was similar to the Brazilian system, two simultaneous and independent pyramids, the national pyramid, and the regional pyramid. ^**The Primera and Segunda was founded by the

Royal Spanish Football Association The Royal Spanish Football Federation ( es, Real Federación Española de Fútbol; RFEF) is the governing body of football in Spain. It is based in La Ciudad del Fútbol of Las Rozas, a municipality near Madrid. It was founded on 14 October 1909 ...

, but since 1984 is operated by the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional. Since 2015 the Primera División is commonly known as LigaSantander and the Segunda División is commonly known as Liga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons.

Women

Until 2021–22

Since 2022–23

Youth

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spanish Football League System Football league systems in Europe

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 ...