The Liga I (; ''First League''), also spelled as Liga 1, is a Romanian professional league for men's

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 ...

clubs. Currently sponsored by betting company Superbet, it is officially known as the SuperLiga. It is the country's top football competition, being contested by 16 clubs which take part in a

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 ...

system with the

Liga II The Liga 2, most often spelled as Liga II, is the second level of the Romanian football league system. The league changed its name from Divizia B just before the start of the 2006–07. It is currently sponsored by Casa Pariurilor, a betting c ...

. The teams play 30 matches each in the regular season, before entering the championship play-offs or the relegation play-outs according to their position in the regular table. The Liga I was established in 1909 and commenced play for the 1909–10 campaign, being currently on the 29th place in

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

's league coefficient ranking list. It is administered by the

Liga Profesionistă de Fotbal The Liga Profesionistă de Fotbal (''Professional Football League''), also known by its acronym LPF, is a Romanian governing body that runs the Liga I, the top professional division of the Romanian football league system. Its current president i ...

, also known by the acronym LPF. Before the 2006–07 season, the competition was known as ''Divizia A'', but the name had to be changed following the finding that someone else had registered that trademark. The best performer to date is

FCSB Fotbal Club FCSB (), commonly known as FCSB, is a Romanian professional football club based in Bucharest. It has spent its entire history in the top flight of the Romanian league system, the Liga I. The original ''Steaua București'' footbal ...

with 26 titles, followed by longtime cross-town rival

Dinamo București A dynamo is a magnetic device originally used as an electric generator. Dynamo or Dinamo may also refer to: Places * Dinamo (Moscow Metro), a station of the Moscow Metro, Moscow, Russia * Dinamo (Yekaterinburg Metro), a station of the Yekaterin ...

with 18 trophies. Furthermore, of the remaining 21 clubs which came victorious in the competition, eight have won it on at least three occasions—

CFR Cluj Fotbal Club CFR 1907 Cluj, commonly known as CFR Cluj ( or ), is a Romanian professional football club based in the city of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj County, which competes in the Liga I. It was founded in 1907 as ''Kolozsvári Vasutas Sport Club'', whe ...

(eight trophies),

Venus București Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

(seven),

Chinezul Timișoara Chinezul Timișoara was a football club that played both in the Romanian and the Hungarian championship during its existence. It was based in Timișoara, Romania (at the time of foundation Temesvár, Austria-Hungary). History The club was establ ...

and

UTA Arad Uta or UTA may refer to: Universities *University of Texas at Arlington, in the United States * University of Tarapacá, in Chile *University of Tampere, in Finland Sports * FC UTA Arad, a Romanian football club based in the town of Arad * A ...

(six each), Ripensia Timișoara, Universitatea Craiova and Petrolul Ploiești (four each), and

Rapid București Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Rapids are hydrological features between a ''run'' (a smoothly flowing part of a stream) and a '' cascade' ...

(three).

History

Early championships (1909–1921)

The first official national football tournament was organized in

1909 Events January–February * January 4 – Explorer Aeneas Mackintosh of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition escaped death by fleeing across ice floes. * January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama. * Jan ...

by the recently founded Romanian Football Federation, then called the ''Association of Athletic Societies in Romania'' ( ro, Asociațiunea Societăților Atletice din România). The final matches of the first Romanian Football Championship were held between December 1909 and January 1910 in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

. The three pioneer clubs were Olympia and Colentina from Bucharest and

United United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...

from

Ploiești Ploiești ( , , ), formerly spelled Ploești, is a city and county seat in Prahova County, Romania. Part of the historical region of Muntenia, it is located north of Bucharest. The area of Ploiești is around , and it borders the Blejoi commune ...

. Each team played a fixture against the other two clubs, totalizing a number of three matches disputed, with

Olympia București Olympia București was a football club based in Bucharest, in southern Romania. It was founded in 1904 and it soon became one of the best teams in the country, winning two Romanian Championships. The club was dissolved in 1946. History The fir ...

being crowned as champions of the first Romanian Football Championship. In the following years, the tournament was structured into regional groups with the winners of each group participating in a playoff with the eventual winners being declared champions. From 1909 until 1921, the championship was organized as a cup with the winner being crowned as Champions of Romania, except for between 1916 and 1919, when the competition was suspended due to

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The champions of this period were Olympia and Colentina, each with two titles, and

, Prahova,

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

Unirea Tricolor București Unirea Tricolor București was a Romanian football club from Bucharest, south-east Romania, founded in 1914 as Tricolor București. It was one of the most famous inter-war clubs in Romania. History Tricolor București Tricolor, first named Tei ...

and Româno-Americana, with one title each.

Divizia A (1921–2006)

The 1921–22 season marked the first time when a league consisting of seven teams was formed. The championship, which had been confined to several regional leagues, became a national competition in 1921 with the foundation of Divizia A and

Divizia B The Liga 2, most often spelled as Liga II, is the second level of the Romanian football league system. The league changed its name from Divizia B just before the start of the 2006–07. It is currently sponsored by Casa Pariurilor, a betting c ...

. The inaugural Divizia A season was won by

. Before the 1931–32 season, the competition was dominated by Chinezul and

, with Chinezul winning six championships and Venus two championships during the eleven seasons. The 1932–33 season saw the rise of another successful team, Ripensia Timișoara, which alongside rivals Venus, won eight of the following nine championships, before the competition was suspended in 1940 due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

The post-war years were dominated by

CCA București CCA may refer to: Organisations *Canadian Cat Association *Canadian Cattlemen's Association, an advocacy group for the Canadian beef industry *Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Quebec * Canadian Council on Africa * Center for Contemporar ...

and Petrolul Ploiești. The 1960s saw the gradual emergence of

, with the help from strikers

Gheorghe Ene Gheorghe Ene (also known as Gheorghe Ene II; 27 January 1937 – 6 April 2009) was a Romanian football striker and coach. Club career Gheorghe Ene was born on 27 January 1937 in București, Romania and started to play football in 1952, aged 14 ...

and

Florea Dumitrache Florea Dumitrache (22 May 1948 – 26 April 2007) was a Romanian professional footballer who played as a striker. Dumitrache spent most of his senior career at Dinamo București, appearing in over 200 league matches and winning three national t ...

—both of whom became some of Divizia A's top all-time scorers. The 1970s saw the rise of

Dudu Georgescu Dudu Georgescu (born 1 September 1950) is a retired Romanian footballer who played as a forward and a former coach. Club career Dudu Georgescu was born in Bucharest on 1 September 1950. He started his career at Progresul București, making h ...

, from Dinamo București, who was Divizia A's leading scorer for four seasons between 1974 and 1978. He scored an impressive 156 goals and won the

European Golden Shoe The European Golden Shoe, also known as European Golden Boot, is an award that is presented each season to the leading goalscorer in league matches from the top division of a European national league. The trophy is a sculpture of a football boo ...

award for the top scorer in Europe twice, in 1975 and 1977. Dinamo București also had two more European Golden Shoe winners in the 1986–87 season in the name of

Rodion Cămătaru Rodion Gorun Cămătaru (; born 22 June 1958) is a Romanian former professional footballer who played as a striker. Club career Rodion Cămătaru was born on 22 June 1958 in Strehaia and debuted in Divizia A with Universitatea Craiova on 10 ...

and in the 1988–89 season in the name of Dorin Mateuţ, with the latter being the last Romanian winner of the trophy. From the 1959–60 season all the way to the 1999–2000 season all the league championships were won by only seven teams: Steaua (16 titles), Dinamo (14 titles), Universitatea Craiova (4 titles),

, FC Argeș and

(2 titles each), and Petrolul Ploiești (one title). Dinamo București was the first Romanian team to qualify into the European Champions Cup in the 1956–57 season of the competition and Universitatea Craiova was the last team from Romania to qualify in the 1991–92 season, before the competition changed its name to the UEFA Champions League. Romanian teams qualified to 35 of the 37 seasons of the European Champions Cup, with Dinamo București having thirteen appearances, Steaua București having ten appearances, Universitatea Craiova having four appearances, Petrolul having three appearances, UTA Arad and FC Argeş having two appearances and Rapid București having one appearance. The most important results for a Romanian team in this competition were achieved by Steaua București which won the trophy in the 1985–86 season, and reached the semi-finals in the 1987–88 season and another final in the 1988–89 season. Other important achievements include Universitatea Craiova which reached the quarter-finals in the 1981–82 season and Dinamo București which reached the semi-finals in the 1983–84 season. However, after the change of the format in

1992–93 Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 '' Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since t ...

to the current Champions League format, Romanian champions have achieved limited successes, with Steaua only reaching the group stage three times before the 21st century. The beginning of the 2000s were dominated by teams from the capital, with Steaua, Dinamo and Rapid winning all the league titles between 2000 and 2007.

Liga I (2006–present)

At the beginning of the 2006–07 season the competition was forced to change its name from Divizia A to Liga I due to a trademark dispute over the name. The change was made on 15 May 2006, and the Romanian Football Federation decided to also rename the lower leagues; thus Divizia B became

, Divizia C became

Liga III The Liga 3, most often spelled as Liga III, is the third level of the Romanian football league system. Its name was changed from Divizia C to Liga III before the start of the 2006–07 season. It was the first in this format (six series of 18 t ...

, and so on. The 2006–07 season marked the 16th straight time a team from Bucharest won the championship, with Dinamo winning the title. Both 2007–08 and 2008–09 saw new title winners as

and

Unirea Urziceni Asociația Sportivă Fotbal Club Urziceni, commonly known as FC Urziceni (), is a Romanian professional football club based in Urziceni, Ialomița County which currently plays in fourth division, Ialomița County. Unirea became national champion ...

were crowned champions for the first time. CFR Cluj won their second championship in 2009–10, while the

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. ...

saw another new winner, Oțelul Galați. Oțelul is the first and only club from the region of

Moldavia Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and for ...

to win a national title so far. Chelsea (2) v (1) CFR Cluj

CFR Cluj, the 2007–08 winner became the first Romanian team to qualify directly into the 2008–09 group stage of the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

, and the first team other than Steaua to qualify to this stage since the beginning of the new Champions League format in

. The 2009–10 champions as well as

ones were guaranteed a direct qualification spot into the group stage as well. The best results in the group stage was obtained by CFR Cluj in the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League with ten points and third place in a group with Manchester United,

Braga Braga ( , ; cel-x-proto, Bracara) is a city and a municipality, capital of the northwestern Portuguese district of Braga and of the historical and cultural Minho Province. Braga Municipality has a resident population of 193,333 inhabitants (in ...

, and

Galatasaray Galatasaray Spor Kulübü (, ''Galatasaray Sports Club'') is a Turkish sports club based on the European side of the city of Istanbul in Turkey. Most notable for its association football department, the club also consists of various other de ...

. The 2010s also brought new league winners in Liga I, with

Astra Giurgiu Asociația Fotbal Club Astra Giurgiu (), commonly known as Astra Giurgiu or simply Astra, was a Romanian football club based in the city of Giurgiu, Giurgiu County. Founded in 1921 in Ploiești as ''Clubul Sportiv Astra-Română'', it spent th ...

and Viitorul Constanța clinching the titles in 2015–16 and 2016–17 respectively. Since 2017 onwards, CFR Cluj won five consecutive Liga I titles, amassing a total number of eight national titles as of 2022. CFR Cluj obtained the best result of a Romanian team in the group stage in the 2019-2020 season of Europa League - 12 points. Also, CFR Cluj became the first Romanian team to qualify to UEFA Conference League group stage, when they obtained 4 points in the inaugural season( 2021-2022).

Competition format

Starting with 2020, the Liga I has been expanded to a 16-team format. After each team plays the others twice for 30 fixtures, they are

ranked A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of ...

by total points and then divided according to their position to enter either the championship play-offs or the relegation play-outs. At this stage, the points are halved in two and criteria such as goal difference, goals scored etc. are erased completely. The six clubs which enter the championship play-offs play ten games, while the remaining ten in the relegation play-outs will only play each other once, resulting in nine fixtures. The championship play-offs winners are also crowned winners of the season's Liga I. The 9th and 10th positions in the play-out are relegated directly to the

, while the 7th- and 8th-placed teams will play a two-legged tie against the 3rd and 4th teams from the second league's table. Also, the 1st and 2nd teams from the play-out phase will play a one-legged game between each other and the winner will face the last team that completed the play-off phase in a European spot. The winner of that one-legged match will play next season in the

UEFA Europa Conference League The UEFA Europa Conference League (abbreviated as UECL) is an annual football club competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. Clubs qualify for the competition based on thei ...

Clubs

Wins by club

Bold indicates clubs currently playing in

2022–23 Liga I The 2022–23 Liga I (also known as SuperLiga for sponsorship reasons) is the 105th season of the Liga I, the top professional league for Romanian association football clubs. The season started on 16 July 2022 and will end in May 2023. It is the ...

. Teams in ''italics'' no longer exist. Teams in neither bold or ''italics'' are existing past winners of the championship that play in Romania's lower leagues.

2020–21 season

The following 16 clubs are competing in the Liga I during the 2020–21 season.

Sponsorship

On 19 December 1998, SABMiller bought the

naming rights Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...

for four and a half seasons, becoming the first sponsor in the history of the competition. SABMiller changed the name of the competition to "Divizia A Ursus", to promote their Ursus beer. Starting with the 2004–05 season, European Drinks & Foods, a Romanian $1.3 billion

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

revenue company, took over as main sponsor and changed the league's name to "Divizia A Bürger", to promote their Bürger beer. On 11 May 2008,

Realitatea Media Realitatea TV (, meaning "The Reality TV") is the former name of the Romanian news television channel Realitatea Plus. The channel began broadcasting in 2001 as a general-profile television and became the first Romanian news television in 2002. I ...

bought the naming rights and changed the name of the competition to "Liga I Realitatea", to promote their

Realitatea TV Realitatea TV (, meaning "The Reality TV") is the former name of the Romanian news television channel Realitatea Plus. The channel began broadcasting in 2001 as a general-profile television and became the first Romanian news television in 2002. I ...

station. In late 2008, European Drinks & Foods again bought the rights and the league was renamed as the "Liga I Frutti Fresh", after one of their soft drinks brand. For the 2009–10 season, the online betting firm Gamebookers purchased the league naming rights and renamed the division "Liga 1 Gamebookers.com". In July 2010, Bergenbier, a StarBev Group company, bought the

for four seasons and changed the name of the competition to "Liga I Bergenbier", to promote their Bergenbier beer. From the 2015–16 season, the French telecommunications corporation

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

became the main sponsor of the Romanian first league, after purchasing the league naming rights, for two years, and renamed the league in Liga 1 Orange. From the 2017–18 season, the international online gaming operator Betano became the main sponsor of the Romanian first league, after purchasing the league naming rights, for two years, and renamed the league in 'Liga 1 Betano'. For the 2019–20 season, the national online gaming operator Casa Pariurilor became the main sponsor of the Romanian first league, after purchasing the league naming rights, and renamed the league in 'Casa Liga 1'. For the 2022-23 season the operator of games in Romania Superbet is the sponsor of the leagues and the name changes to Superliga Romnaniei

Media coverage

In 2004,

Telesport Telesport was the first Romanian sports channel launched on 1 December 2003, by Silviu Prigoană, the man behind Taraf TV and Etno TV. On March 28 2008, Realitatea-Caţavencu Group bought the station and brought a new team to manage the channel, ...

, a small TV network, bought the broadcasting rights for $28 million. The four seasons contract ended in the summer of 2008. Telesport sold some of the broadcasting rights for matches to other Romanian networks, including,

TVR1 TVR 1 (; spelled out as ''Televiziunea Română 1'', "Romanian Television 1") is the main channel of the Romanian public broadcaster Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is p ...

Antena 1 Antena 1 may refer to: * Antena 1 (Portugal), a Portuguese radio station *Antena 1 (Romania) Antena 1 () is a Romanian free-to-air television network owned by the Antena TV Group, part of the Intact Media Group. Its programming consists of tel ...

, Național TV, and

Kanal D Kanal D, also known as Channel D, is a nationwide television channel in Turkey and part of Demirören Group. It was founded by Ayhan Şahenk and Aydın Doğan in 1993. The network also runs an international channel, Euro D which is available ...

. On 31 March 2008, Antena 1 with RCS & RDS outbid

and

in the broadcasting rights auction with a bid of €102 million for a three seasons contract. In 2011, the broadcasting rights were bought by RCS & RDS for their channels Digi Sport 1, Digi Sport 2 and Digi Sport 3. This channels aired broadcasting of seven of the nine matches from each stage of the championship. The other two matches were broadcast by

(an

Intact Media Group INTACT is the first Romanian media group based entirely on a private local business. A considerable number of the most important propaganda brands in the audio-visual and print industry have been launched under this umbrella since its first produ ...

channel) and Dolce Sport (a channel owned by

Telekom Romania Telekom Romania Communications (formerly known as Romtelecom) is a Romanian telecommunications company, which provides fixed voice, television and data services, for residential and business customers in Romania. As of 2020, Telekom Romania Commu ...

). In March 2014, LPF announced that the rights were sold for a five-year period to a company from the European Union, without specifying the company's name. A month later,

Look TV To look is to use sight to perceive an object. Look or The Look may refer to: Businesses and products * Look (modeling agency), an Israeli modeling agency * ''Look'' (American magazine), a defunct general-interest magazine * ''Look'' (UK ma ...

and Look Plus were revealed as the TV stations that would broadcast the games from Liga I and

Cupa Ligii The Cupa Ligii ( en, League Cup) was Romania's secondary club association football, football tournament. Like the Cupa României, it was played on a knockout (single elimination) basis. History It is unclear when the competition was first crea ...

between 2014 and 2019.

EA Sports

On 27 August 2019, Liga I signed a contract with

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network ...

for the rights of the league for

FIFA 20 ''FIFA 20'' is a football simulation video game published by Electronic Arts as part of the ''FIFA'' series. It is the 27th installment in the series and was released on 27 September 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nint ...

. It was the first time that the Liga I had been featured in a sports video game. Liga I has been featured in every FIFA installment since then.

Records

Players

Managers

Referees

International competitions

Performance in international competitions

From the quarter-finals onwards.

UEFA ranking

UEFA League Ranking as of 11 September: * 22. ''(22)'' Allsvenskan * 23. ''(23)''

First Professional Football League The First Professional Football League ( bg, Първа професионална футболна лига, Parva Profesionalna Futbolna Liga), also known as the Bulgarian First League or Parva Liga, currently known as the efbet League for spon ...

* 24. ''(24)'' Liga I * 25. ''(25)''

Eliteserien Eliteserien () is a Norwegian professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the Norwegian football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotio ...

* 26. ''(26)'' Azerbaijan Premier League

Notes

References

External links

Liga Profesionistă de Fotbal official website

Results and statistics from 1932 onwards at labtof.ro
{{Liga I top scorers 1

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

1909 establishments in Romania Sports leagues established in 1909 Football Professional sports leagues in Romania