The 2019–20 Czech First League, known as the Fortuna liga for sponsorship reasons, was the 27th season of the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

's top-tier

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

league. The defending champions were

Slavia Prague Sportovní klub Slavia Praha – fotbal (Sports Club Slavia Prague – Football, ), commonly known as Slavia Praha or Slavia Prague, is a Czech professional football club in Prague. Founded in 1892, they are the second most successful club in t ...

, who won their fifth Czech title in the previous season. This season was the second one with a new league structure in which 16 clubs play each other home and away, until the league is split up in championship, Europa League and relegation groups.

Season events

On 12 March, the League Football Association announced that all Fortuna liga games had been postponed for the foreseeable future due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. After 2 months, on 12 May, the League Football Association announced that the Fortuna liga would resume on 25 May. The regular season concluded on 14 June 2020. On 23 July, when the Champions group and the Europa League playoffs had already been finalized, SFC Opava - a team holding 15th place in the table had a suspected coronavirus case among their team members. The Czech League Football Association said it was not possible to complete the league's relegation group as a result of this, and the team was forced to quarantine. None of the three teams in danger of being relegated to the second league, namely Karviná, Opava and Příbram, would be relegated. From the Second League, the victorious Pardubice, and second-placed Zbrojovka Brno would advance to the first league, while third-placed Dukla Praha would not. The relegation group matches were suspended and no team was relegated.

Teams

Team changes

Stadiums and locations

Regular season

League table

Results

Each team plays home-and-away against every other team in the league, for a total of 30 matches played each.

Championship group

Points and goals were carried over in full from the regular season.

Europa League play-offs

Teams placed between 7th and 10th position will take part in the Europa league play-offs. The best of them will play against the fourth-placed or fifth-placed of the championship play-offs to determine the Europa League play-off winners. The winners will qualify for the

second qualifying round The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of Un ...

of the 2020–21 UEFA Europa League.

Final

Relegation group

Points and goals were carried over in full from the regular season. The relegation group was scheduled to conclude on 7 July but due to three players from

MFK Karviná MFK Karviná is a professional football club located in Karviná, Czech Republic. It plays in the Czech First League. The team's colours are green and white. History Karviná as a multi-ethnic city of Cieszyn Silesia was a home to many football ...

testing positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

, the last two rounds of matches were postponed to 23 and 26 July. Then, due to one player from SFC Opava testing positive for

, the last two rounds of matches were not played. As a consequence, no team was relegated and number of teams for 2020–2021 season was increased from 16 to 18.

Top scorers

Awards

Monthly Awards

Annual awards

Attendances

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Czech First League, 2019-20 2019–20 in European association football leagues 1 2019-20

Czech First League The Czech First League () also known as the Chance Liga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in the Czech Republic and the highest level of the Czech Republic football league system. Seasons typically run from A ...