Latvian Higher League or Virslīga is a professional football league and the top tier of association football in

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

. Organised by the Latvian Football Federation, the Higher League is contested by 10 clubs. The full name of the league is Optibet Virslīga for sponsorship reasons since 2019.

History and league format

History

The first all-national Latvian championship, which succeeded the Riga Football League and other regional leagues, was organized in 1927, which lasted until the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940. After World War II, between 1945 and 1991 the championship of Soviet Latvia was the main footballing competition in the

Latvian SSR The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Latvian SSR), also known as Soviet Latvia or simply Latvia, was a federated republic within the Soviet Union, and formally one of its 16 (later 15) constituent republics. The Latvian Soviet Socialist Rep ...

. With Latvia regaining full independence in August 1991, the newly established Latvian Football Federation (LFF) decided to reorganise its competitions within the Virslīga from 1992. The same year Latvia returned to

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

and became a member of UEFA.

Format

After the 2007 season the league increased from eight to ten sides. In 2008 each side played the others four times. From 2015 till 2018 there were eight participating clubs. This was increased to nine for the 2019 season and ten for the 2020 season. At the end of the season, the lowest placed team are automatically relegated into 1. līga, and the winner of the 1. līga automatically takes their place. The second lowest placed team in Virslīga and the second team of 1. līga play two matches for a place in the Virslīga the following season. The winner of Virslīga, the champion of Latvia, plays in the UEFA Champions League qualifying round. The second and third placed clubs play in the UEFA Europa League qualifying games. A winter off-season league cup, the Virslīga Winter Cup, was played in January of each year from 2013 to 2017, which was replaced in 2018 by the Virslīga Cup (). There again will be 10 teams in 2022 season. Last year participant
RFSValmiera FCFK LiepājaRiga FCFK Spartaks JūrmalaBFC Daugavpils
an
FK Metta
will be joined by newcomer
FK Auda
FK Tukums 2000/Telms and SK Super Nova.

Sponsorships and name changes

The League has changed sponsors for several times. From 2005 until 2010 it was known as the

LMT LMT may stand for: Places *Klamath Falls Airport, Oregon, US (IATA code LMT) *Lebanon Mountain Trail, a hiking trail in Lebanon * Lower Merion Township, a township in Pennsylvania bordering Philadelphia Businesses and organizations *'' Laredo Morn ...

Virslīga. No sponsorships were established for the 2011 season. Starting from the 2012 season, the league was reorganised in partnership with an NGO as "Latvijas Futbola virslīga", adopting the NGO's name in the 2012 season. From 2013 to 2015, the league was known as the SMScredit.lv Virslīga due to a contract with the online microfinance company SMScredit. In March 2016, it was announced that the Virslīga would be sponsored by SynotTip Sports Bar on a three-year contract. They were succeeded by betting firm Optibet on a two-year contract, beginning with the 2019 season.

Clubs (2022)

Titles by year

Source:

Riga Football League

* 1908 British FC * 1909 RV Union * 1910 RV Union * 1911 Britannia FC * 1912 RV Union * 1913 SV Kaiserwald * 1914 Britannia FC * 1915 Britannia FC

Latvian Championship 1922–1940 (independent)

* 1922 Kaiserwald Riga * 1923 Kaiserwald Riga * 1924

RFK Riga Riga FK (''Rīgas futbola klubs'', short – RFK) was a Latvian football club which was founded December 14, 1923. It was the strongest and most popular Latvian football club in 1920s and 1930s, it was also the base team for Latvia national f ...

* 1925

* 1926

* 1927 Olimpia Liepaja * 1928 Olimpia Liepaja * 1929 Olimpia Liepaja * 1930

* 1931

* 1932 ASK Riga * 1933 Olimpia Liepaja * 1934

* 1935

* 1936 Olimpia Liepaja * 1937 ''Not Played'' * 1938 Olimpia Liepaja * 1939 Olimpia Liepaja * 1940

Football Championship of Latvian SSR 1942–1990

* 1942 ASK Riga * 1944 ASK Riga * 1945 Dinamo Riga * 1946 Sarkanais Metalurgs Liepaja * 1947 Sarkanais Metalurgs Liepaja * 1948 SA Riga * 1949 Sarkanais Metalurgs Liepaja * 1950 AVN Riga * 1951 Sarkanais Metalurgs Liepaja * 1952 AVN Riga * 1953 Sarkanais Metalurgs Liepaja * 1954 Sarkanais Metalurgs Liepaja * 1955 Darba reserves * 1956 Sarkanais Metalurgs Liepaja * 1957 Sarkanais Metalurgs Liepaja * 1958 Sarkanais Metalurgs Liepaja * 1959 RER Riga * 1960 SKA Riga * 1961 SKA Riga * 1962 SKA Riga * 1963 SKA Riga * 1964 SKA Riga * 1965 SKA Riga * 1966 ESR-Energija Riga * 1967 ESR-Energija Riga * 1968 Starts Brotseny * 1969 Venta Ventspils * 1970 VEF Riga * 1971 VEF Riga * 1972 Jurnieks Riga * 1973 VEF Riga * 1974 VEF Riga * 1975 VEF Riga * 1976 Energija Riga * 1977 Energija Riga * 1978 Kimiks Daugavpils * 1979 Elektrons Riga * 1980 Kimiks Daugavpils * 1981 Elektrons Riga * 1982 Elektrons Riga * 1983 VEF Riga * 1984

Torpedo Riga 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, s ...

* 1985 Alfa Riga * 1986

* 1987

* 1988

RAF Jelgava RAF Jelgava was a Latvian football (soccer), football club based in Jelgava.The foundation of the club is considered in 1988 and for the first two years there were two teams of RAF Jelgava which in 1990 merged into one. One of those played in the ...

* 1989

* 1990

Gauja Valmiera Gauja Valmiera was a Latvian football club from Valmiera that played in the top Latvian league from 1979 to 1993. It was named after the river Gauja. In the 1990s another Valmiera football club – FK Valmiera – was renamed to Gauja ...

Since independence in 1991

*1991

Skonto Riga Skonto FC was a Latvian football club, active from 1991 until 2016. The club played at the Skonto Stadium in Riga. Skonto won the Virsliga in the first 14 seasons of the league's resumption (15 in total), and often provided the core of the Lat ...

*1992

*1993

*1994

*1995

*1996

*1997

*1998

*1999

*2000

*2001

*2002

*2003

*2004

*2005 Liepajas Metalurgs *2006 FK Ventspils *2007 FK Ventspils *2008 FK Ventspils *2009 Liepajas Metalurgs *2010

*2011 FK Ventspils *2012

Daugava Daugavpils FC Daugava was a Latvian football club, based at the Daugava Stadium, in the city of Daugavpils. They lastly played in the Latvian Second League in 2015. They were one of two clubs with the name ''Daugava'' and should not be confused with FK ...

*2013 FK Ventspils *2014 FK Ventspils *2015 FK Liepaja *2016 JPFS/FK Spartaks Jurmala *2017 JPFS/FK Spartaks Jurmala *

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

Riga FC *

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

Riga FC *

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

Riga FC *

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 ...

RFS *

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

Valmiera

Notable managers and players

File:Aleksandrs_Starkovs.jpg, Aleksandrs Starkovs has won 12 league titles since independence with Skonto as a manager. File:Roman_Hryhorchuk_11.08.2013.1.jpg, Three times winner with Ventspils Ukrainian

Roman Hryhorchuk Roman Yosypovych Hryhorchuk ( uk, Роман Йосипович Григорчук; born 22 March 1965) is a Ukrainian football manager who is the head coach of Chornomorets Odesa and a former player. Playing career He started playing with Lys ...

is the first manager who reached

Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

group stage in Virslīga history. File:Māris_Verpakovskis.jpg, First-ever Latvian who scored in

Euros The euro (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . T ...

Māris Verpakovskis has won league titles with both Skonto and Liepāja. File:Marians_Pahars.jpg, Ukrainian born Marians Pahars has won 5 league titles before moving to Southampton. File:Viktor_Skripnik.jpg, Bundesliga winner Ukrainian

Viktor Skrypnyk Viktor Anatoliyovych Skrypnyk ( uk, Віктор Анатолійович Скрипник; born 19 November 1969) is a Ukrainian former professional footballer and current manager of Vorskla Poltava. As a player, he helped Werder Bremen to the ...

has won league title with

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

as a manager. File:Aleksandrs Koliņko.jpg,

Aleksandrs Koliņko Aleksandrs Koliņko (born 18 June 1975) is a Latvian retired professional footballer who works as assistant manager and goalkeeping coach of Latvian Higher League club FK RFS. Club career Koliņko was born in Riga and started his career in 1994 ...

, best known for playing for Crystal Palace has won 6 league titles totally with Skonto as a player and Spartaks as an assistant manager.

Most titles

This is a list of clubs, in order of most titles won in championships in independent Latvia (1922–1940 and 1991 to date). Teams in bold are part of 2020 Virslīga. Virsliga 2008 Ventspils

By club

Rivalries

The most well-known rivalry is the Kurzeme Derby (Kurzemes derbijs) between Ventspils and Liepāja. The two biggest clubs in Kurzeme have played 86 matches between themselves with a record of 31–28–27 (including Metalurgs) in favor of Liepāja prior to the 2019 Virslīga. Since 2016, the Riga Derby (Rīgas derbijs) was started between Riga FC and

Rīgas FS Rīgas Futbola Skola (Latvian for ''Riga's football school'') is a Latvian women's association football, football club from Riga. The women play in the top level Latvian Women's League and won the championship in 2013 and 2014. They won their thi ...

as two clubs were promoted at the same time. A 2019 match in Skonto Stadium between the two sides broke a ten-year attendance record.

Virslīga clubs in international competitions

UEFA competitions Ventspils was the Latvian first club who qualified for the group stage of a UEFA club competition, reaching the

2009–10 UEFA Europa League group stage The 2009–10 UEFA Europa League group stage matches took place between 17 September and 17 December 2009. The group stage featured the 38 winners of the play-off round and the 10 losing sides of the Champions League play-off round. Following t ...

. Europa League group stage Skonto reached the UEFA Champions League last qualifying stage for a number of times in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but lost to such teams like FC Barcelona in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, Internazionale FC in 1998 and Chelsea FC in 1999. Most recently, RFS qualified for the

2022-23 UEFA Europa Conference League The hyphen-minus is the most commonly used type of hyphen, widely used in digital documents. It is the only character that looks like a minus sign or a dash in many character sets such as ASCII or on most keyboards, so it is also used as such. ...

group stage, finishing in fourth place with 2 points. Commonwealth of Independent States Cup * Skonto **''Runners-up'' (3):

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

. * Ventspils **''Runners-up'' (1):

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

. Baltic League * Metalurgs **Champions (1): 2007. * Ventspils **Champions (1): 2010. **''Runners-up'' (2): 2007, 2011. * Skonto **Champions (1): 2011. **''Runners-up'' (1): 2008.

References

External links

Association Virsliga at futbolavirsliga.tv

Virsliga fixtures, including kick off times, at worldfootball.net
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Summer association football leagues it:Campionato lettone di calcio