The 2021 Bolivian Primera División season, known as the 2021 Copa Tigo season for sponsorship reasons, was the 44th season of the División Profesional del Fútbol Boliviano,

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

's top-flight

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league and the fourth season under División de Fútbol Profesional management. The season began on 9 March and ended on 12 December 2021. Independiente Petrolero won their first title in the tournament following a 3–2 win over Guabirá and a 1–0 loss for

The Strongest Club The Strongest is a Bolivian professional football club based in La Paz, that currently plays in the Bolivian Primera División. Founded in 1908, their team colours are yellow and black. Although they have a home ground, Estadio Rafael Me ...

against

Real Santa Cruz Club Real Santa Cruz is a 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'' ...

on the last day of the season. Always Ready were the defending champions, having won the 2020 Apertura tournament.

Format

The format for the 2021 season was approved by the 16 División Profesional clubs on 17 February 2021. Given the need to allow clubs qualified for the

Copa Libertadores The CONMEBOL Libertadores, also known as Copa Libertadores de América (), is an annual continental club football competition organized by CONMEBOL since 1960. It is the highest level of competition in South American club football. The tournam ...

and

Copa Sudamericana The CONMEBOL Sudamericana, also known as Copa Sudamericana (; ), is an annual international club football competition organized by CONMEBOL, the governing body of football in South America, since 2002. It is the second-most prestigious club com ...

as well as the

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...

to fulfill their international commitments, and concerns by the development of 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 ...

, it was decided to play a single tournament in the year instead of the usual

Apertura and Clausura The ' () and ' () tournaments is a split Season (sports), season format for Spanish-speaking sports leagues. It is a relatively recent innovation for many Latin American soccer, football sports league, leagues in which the traditional association ...

system. The 16 teams played each other twice in a double round-robin tournament for a total of 30 rounds. The

Bolivian Football Federation The Bolivian Football Federation (, ; FBF) is the governing body of football in Bolivia. It was founded in 1925, making it the eighth oldest South American federation. It affiliated to CONMEBOL and FIFA in 1926 and is in charge of Bolivia nationa ...

originally proposed 13 March 2021 as the date to start the competition, but per request from the four clubs that took part in the Copa Sudamericana the date was moved forward to 10 March 2021. The top four clubs at the end of the season qualified for the

2022 Copa Libertadores The 2022 Copa CONMEBOL Libertadores was the 63rd edition of the CONMEBOL Libertadores (also referred to as the ''Copa Libertadores''), South America's premier club football tournament organized by CONMEBOL. On 14 May 2020, CONMEBOL announced th ...

, with the champions and runners-up entering the group stage, while the next four best-placed teams qualified for the

2022 Copa Sudamericana The 2022 Copa CONMEBOL Sudamericana was the 21st edition of the CONMEBOL Sudamericana (also referred to as the ''Copa Sudamericana''), South America's secondary club football tournament organized by CONMEBOL. On 14 May 2020, CONMEBOL announced t ...

Teams

16 teams competed in the league for the 2021 season, increasing from 14 since no clubs were relegated at the end of the previous season. Real Tomayapo and Independiente Petrolero, the 2020

Copa Simón Bolívar Copa or COPA may refer to: COPA COPA may refer to: * Child Online Protection Act, a former U.S. law to protect minors from certain material on the internet * Canadian Owners and Pilots Association * Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association * Parlia ...

champions and runners-up, were both promoted for this season. The former competed for the first time in the top tier, while the latter returned after a 17-year absence.

Stadia and locations

Managerial changes

;Notes

Standings

Results

Top scorers

Source
Soccerway
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Relegation/promotion play-off

The relegation play-off was played by: *

Real Potosí Real may refer to: Currencies * Argentine real * Brazilian real (R$) * Central American Republic real * Mexican real * Portuguese real * Spanish real * Spanish colonial real Nature and science * Reality, the state of things as they exist, rath ...

(2021 División Profesional 15th place) *

Universitario de Sucre Club Deportivo Universitario San Francisco Xavier is a professional association football, football team based in Sucre, Bolivia, that competes in the Liga de Fútbol Profesional Boliviano, Bolivian Primera División. The club has two titles in ...

(2021

runners-up) The winners played in the top flight for the 2022 season. ---- ''Universitario de Sucre won 6–0 on points and were promoted to Primera División.''

References

External links

División Profesional on the FBF's official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boliviano Season

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...