Liga Asobal is the premier professional

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball, Olympic handball or indoor handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of thr ...

league in Spain. It was founded in 1958 with the name of División de Honor, changing its name to the current name in 1990. The Liga ASOBAL, which is played under EHF rules, currently consists of 16 teams, including famous ones like

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly known as FC Barcelona and colloquially as Barça (), is a professional Football club (association football), football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of ...

Ademar León Ademar is a masculine Germanic name, ultimately derived from ''Audamar'', as is the German form Otmar. It was in use in medieval France, Latinized as ''Adamarus'' or ''Ademarus'', and in modern times has been popular in French, Spanish and Portug ...

Bidasoa __NOTOC__ The Bidasoa (; ; , ) is a river in the Basque Country of northern Spain and southern France that runs largely south to north. Named as such downstream of the village of Oronoz-Mugairi (municipality of Baztan) in the province of Navar ...

and

Granollers Granollers (; ) is a city in central Catalonia, about 30 kilometres north-east of Barcelona. It is the capital and most densely populated city in the comarca of Vallès Oriental. Granollers is now a bustling business centre, having grown from ...

. Famous handball players who have played in the league include

Jackson Richardson Jackson Richardson (born 14 June 1969) is a French former handball player. Regarded as one of the best and most influential handball players of his era, Richardson won fourteen titles at club level and the World Championship in 1995 and 2001 wit ...

Talant Dujshebaev Talant Mushanbetovich Dujshebaev (; born 2 June 1968) is a former handball player, and current coach, who serves as the head coach for Vive Kielce. Dujshebaev is considered by many to be one of the greatest handball coaches of his generation. H ...

Staffan Olsson Erik Staffan Olsson (born 26 March 1964) is a Swedish handball coach and former player. Olsson, who always played with no 13, was a left-handed right backcourt player with one of the most feared shots of all the elite players. Later in his care ...

Mikhail Yakimovich Mikhail Ivanovich Yakimovich (; , born 13 January 1967) is a former Belarusian handball player. Throughout his senior career, Yakimovich played for SKA Minsk in the Soviet Union/Belarus, and later for Teka Cantabria and Portland San Antonio in ...

Ólafur Stefánsson Ólafur Indriði Stefánsson (born 3 July 1973) is an Icelandic former handball player who, for many years was the captain of the Iceland men's national handball team but announced his international retirement after the 2012 London Olympics. H ...

Oleg Kisselev Oleg Viktorovich Kiselyov (; born 11 January 1967 in Yaroslavl) is a Russian handball player. He won a gold medal with the Unified Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. He played for the Russia men's national handball team ...

Alberto Urdiales Alberto Urdiales Márquez (born 17 November 1968) is a Spanish handball player. He competed in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Olympics. In 1992, he was a member of the Spanish handball team which finished fifth in the Olympic tournament. He played ...

Mateo Garralda Mateo Jesús Garralda Larumbe (born 1 December 1969) is a Spanish retired handballer and the current head coach of italian club Albatro Siracusa. Career Garralda started playing handball in his hometown club BM Burlada. He then joined BM Grano ...

Enric Masip Enric Masip Borrás (born September 1, 1969 in Barcelona) is a retired Spanish handball player. He is considered one of the best Spanish handball players ever. Formed in the younger categories of BM Granollers, in 1987 begun to play with the fir ...

Iñaki Urdangarin Iñaki Urdangarin Liebaert (born 15 January 1968) is a retired Spanish handball player turned entrepreneur and the former husband of Infanta Cristina, younger daughter of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía. He was the brother-in-law of King Fel ...

David Barrufet David Barrufet Bofill (born 4 June 1970 in Barcelona, Spain) is a former Spanish handball goalkeeper and current handball coach. Until 2021 he had the record for most matches for the Spanish national team until he was overtaken by Alberto Entr ...

Kristian Kjelling Kristian Cato Walby Kjelling (; born 8 September 1980) is a retired Norwegian handball player, who was part of the national team from 2001 to 2014. He last played for the Norwegian club Drammen HK. He is now their coach. Career Before re-joinin ...

Mikkel Hansen Mikkel Hansen (born 22 October 1987) is a Danish former professional handball player. Widely regarded as the greatest handball player of all timeHansen has won the IHF World Player of the Year a record-tying three times. He played as a left bac ...

Petar Metličić Petar Metličić (born 25 December 1976) is a Croatian former handball player. He was captain of the Croatian national team Ivano Balić Ivano Balić (; born 1 April 1979) is a Croatian former professional handballer who is currently part of the coaching staff at RK Split. Renowned for his speed, creativity, movement and charisma as a player, Balić won the 2003 World Men's Handb ...

Juanín García Juan Antonio "Juanín" García Lorenzana better known as Juanín García (born 28 August 1977) is a Spanish former handball player. He retired in 2019 after playing for CB Ademar León. He is the all time top scorer in the Spanish Liga ASOBAL ...

, Mats Olsson, David Davis, László Nagy,

Raúl Entrerríos Raúl Entrerríos Rodríguez (born 12 February 1981) is a former Spanish handball player and current handball coach. He participated at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as a member of the Spain men's national handball team. The team won a br ...

Alberto Entrerríos Alberto Entrerrios Rodríguez (born 7 November 1976) is a Spanish former professional handball player. He is 192 cm tall and weighs 102 kg. He spent 10 seasons (2002–2012) playing for BM Ciudad Real and 1 season (2011–2012) for B ...

, and many others.

History

* The "División de Honor" Handball championship was created in 1958 and was managed by the Spanish Handball Federation (FEBM) until 1990. ASOBAL (Handball Clubs Association) was formed in 1984. In 1990, ASOBAL took control of the División de Honor and renamed it Liga ASOBAL. *

have won every championship since 2011, in part due to the disbandment of previous top clubs

Ciudad Real Ciudad Real (, ) is a municipality of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha, capital of the province of Ciudad Real. It is the 5th most populated municipality in the region. It was founded as Villa Real in 1255 as a ro ...

and

Portland San Antonio Sociedad Deportiva Cultural San Antonio was a Spanish handball team based in Pamplona, Navarra. In July 2012, the team resigned from the Liga ASOBAL for the 2012–13 season due to the failure to find a new sponsor, being demoted two divisions ( ...

. *The 13-time champions

have not won the title since the 1973–74 season.

Championship rules

Each team of every division has to play with all the other teams of its division twice, once at home and the other at the opponent's stadium. This means that in ''Liga ASOBAL'' the league ends after every team plays 30 matches. Like many other leagues in continental Europe, the ''Liga ASOBAL'' takes a winter break once each team has played half its schedule. One unusual feature of the league is that the two halves of the season are played in the same order—that is, the order of each team's first-half fixtures is repeated in the second half of the season, with the only difference being the stadiums used. Each victory adds 2 points to the team in the league ranking. Each drawn adds 1 point.head-to-head. At the end of the league, the winner is: #The team that has most points in the ranking. #If two or more teams are level on points, the winner is the team that has the best results #If there is no winner after applying the second rule, then the team with the best overall goal difference wins.

2024-25 season teams

Champions by year

Primera División champions

División de Honor champions

Liga ASOBAL champions

Performance by club

All-time Liga ASOBAL table

*''Updated at completion of 2017–18 season.'' League or status at 2018–19 season:

Statistics

EHF coefficients

The following data indicates

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

coefficient rankings between European handball leagues. ;Country ranking: EHF League Ranking for 2021/22 season: *1. (''1'')

Handball-Bundesliga The Handball-Bundesliga (HBL) is the top German professional handball league. From 2007 to 2012, the league was sponsored by Toyota and was officially called the ''Toyota Handball-Bundesliga''. In 2012 the Deutsche Kreditbank AG (DKB) became t ...

(133.67) *2. (''4'')

LNH Division 1 LNH Division 1, doing business as Starligue and currently known as Liqui Moly Starligue for sponsorship reasons, is the premier men's professional handball league in France. It is administered by the Ligue Nationale de Handball, under delegatio ...

(132.83) *3. (''3'') Liga ASOBAL (95.83) *4. (''4'')

Nemzeti Bajnokság I The Nemzeti Bajnokság (, ), also known as NB I or Fizz Liga after its title sponsor, OTP Bank's webshop subsidiary, is a professional association football league in Hungary and the highest level of the Hungarian football league system. Twelve ...

(94.83) *5. (''5'')

Macedonian Handball Super League The Macedonian Handball Super League (), is the top-tier team handball competition in North Macedonia. As of 2018, the Macedonian Handball Federation was ranked 8th in the world. Current teams Teams for season 2024–25 Handball League * RK ...

(93.00) ;Club ranking: EHF Club Ranking as of 3 March 2019: * 1.

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

(1002) * 25.

(346) * 28.

La Rioja La Rioja () is an autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community and provinces of Spain, province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other List of municipalities in La Rioja, cities and towns in the ...

(317) * 32.

(295) * 52. Anaitasuna (165)

References

External links

Official website

The ASOBAL Magazine, "balonmano"

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liga Asobal 1 Professional sports leagues in Spain