Malian Première Division (
French: ''Première division malienne'') is the top division of
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 ...
in
Mali
Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...
. Having been created in 1966, it is governed by the
Malian Football Federation
The Malian Football Federation () is the governing body of football in Mali. Founded in 1960, it joined the Confederation of African Football, CAF in 1963 and has been affiliated with FIFA since 1964. Its first general secretary was Garan Fabou K ...
. The league has been professional since 2004. The official name is Ligue 1 Orange Mali for sponsorship reasons.
The season usually runs from December to late August. The league currently consists of twenty clubs split into two pools and features a round-robin home-and-away schedule within each pool. The top two in each pool qualify for the Championship Play-Off (''Carré d'As''), which involves a round-robin between the four teams. The winners of the play-off are crowned champions and qualify for the
CAF Champions League
The CAF Champions League, known for sponsorship purposes as the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League and formerly the African Cup of Champions Clubs, is an annual football club (association football), club football competition organized by the Conf ...
.
In the
2017 season, the competition started in early January, but in the 6th round, the government dissolved the football association on 9 March and the remaining matches of the round were abandoned. The league did not take place in 2018 but resumed for the
2019-20 season.
Teams (2021–22)
Previous winners
Performance by club
Top goalscorers
References
External links
Malian Football Federation
*
ttps://www.rsssf.org/tablesm/malichamp.html RSSSF competition history
{{DEFAULTSORT:Malian Premiere Division
1
Top-level football leagues in Africa
1966 establishments in Mali
Sports leagues established in 1966