Country Belarus Founded 1992 Level on pyramid 1 | Confederation UEFA Number of teams 16 | |
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Relegation to Belarusian First League | ||
The Belarusian Premier League or the Vysheyshaya Liga (Belarusian: Вышэйшая ліга, "Top League") is the top division of professional football in Belarus, and is organized by the Belarusian Football Federation. The number of teams in the competition has varied over the years from as high as 17 (1992–93 season) to as low as 11 (2012). As of 2016, the league includes 16 teams. Each team plays every other team twice during the course of the season. At the end of the season two teams are relegated to the Belarusian First League, and two are promoted from the First League to replace them.
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BATE Borisov are the current champions and most successful team, with 13 titles.
History
The Belarusian Premier League was organized in 1992. The first participants were: Dinamo Minsk, the only Belarusian side in the former Soviet Top League, five teams from the lower tiers of the Soviet league system, and ten teams who were previous competitors in the Belarusian SSR First League.
Immediately after the organization of the league, it was decided to change its season from a Soviet-style summer season to a European-style winter season. To make that possible, the first season was shortened, consisting of a single round-robin tournament between 16 teams, finishing in mid-summer. Due to the shortened season, no team was relegated from the Premier League and only one was promoted from the First League. The 1992–93 season had 17 teams, but was reduced back to 16 teams for the following season. In 1995, the winter season experiment was proven unsuccessful due to poor weather and field conditions in Belarus in the late autumn and early spring. The season was changed back to summer, and the 1995 championship was again held as a single round-robin tournament. Every season since 1996 has been played in the summer.
Throughout the 2000s, the number of competing teams has changed several times. In 2001, the league was reduced to 14 teams, but expanded back to 16 in 2003. In 2005, after two teams withdrew before the start of the season, the league was once again reduced to 14 clubs, but expanded again to 16 teams in 2008. That same year, the decision was made to gradually reduce the number of teams even more, starting with 14 teams in 2009 and 12 in 2010 onwards. 2012 season was played with only 11 teams due to last minute exclusion of Partizan Minsk.
In its earliest years, the league was dominated by Dinamo Minsk, who won the league five times in a row between 1992 and 1995. During the next ten seasons, seven different teams finished as champions: Slavia Mozyr (1996 as MPKC Mozyr, 2000), Dinamo Minsk (1997, 2004), Dnepr-Transmash Mogilev (1998), BATE Borisov (1999, 2002), Belshina Bobruisk (2001), Gomel (2003), Shakhtyor Soligorsk (2005). Since 2006, BATE Borisov has dominated the league, winning eleven championships in a row (2006–2016), and becoming the first Belarusian team to reach the group stage of the UEFA Champions League (2008, 2011, 2012, and 2015) and the UEFA Europa League (2009 and 2010).
Premier League in 2016
All-time table
As of end of 2016 season.Player of the year
Belarusian Premier League Player of the year is an annual award given by a sports newspaper Pressball.
Reserves League
An annual league competition is organized for the reserve teams of Premier League clubs since 2001. This tournament was won by the reserves of Dinamo Minsk (7 titles), Gomel (2 titles), Shakhtyor Soligorsk (2 titles), BATE Borisov (1 title), Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino (1 title) and Dnepr Mogilev (1 title).