Country Denmark Founded 1991 Number of teams 14 | Confederation UEFA First season 1991 Level on pyramid 1 | |
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The Danish Superliga (Danish: Superligaen, [ˈsuːˀb̥ɐliːɡ̊æːˀn̩]) is the current Danish football championship tournament, and administered by the Danish Football Association. It is the highest football league in Denmark and is currently contested by 14 teams each year, with 2 teams to be relegated.
Contents
History
Founded in 1991, the Danish Superliga replaced the Danish 1st Division as the highest league of football in Denmark. From the start in 1991, 10 teams were participating. The opening Superliga season was played during the spring of 1991, with the ten teams playing each other twice for the championship title. From the summer of 1991, the tournament structure would stretch over two years. The 10 teams would play each other twice in the first half of the tournament. In the following spring, the bottom two teams would be cut off, the points of the teams would be cut in half, and the remaining eight teams would once more play each other twice, for a total of 32 games in a season.
This practice was abandoned before the 1995–96 season, when the number of teams competing were increased to 12, playing each other thrice for 33 games per Superliga season. For the first season of this new structure, Coca-Cola became the name sponsor of the league, which was then named Coca-Cola Ligaen. After a single season under that name, Faxe Brewery became sponsors and the league changed its name to Faxe Kondi Ligaen. Before the 2001–02 season, Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) became the head sponsor, and the name of the tournament changed to SAS Ligaen. From January 2015 the Danish Superliga is known as Alka Superliga, as the Danish insurance company Alka became name sponsor.
Logos used for naming rights agreements for the league:
Structure
From 1996 through 2016, the league included 12 clubs which played each other three times. The two teams with the fewest points at the end of the season were relegated to the Danish 1st Division and replaced by the top two teams of that division. During this era, each team played every other team at least once at home and once away plus once more either at home or away. The top six teams of the previous season played 17 matches at home and 16 away while the teams in 7th to 10th place plus the two newly promoted teams played 16 matches at home and 17 away.
Following the 2015–16 season, the league was expanded to 14 teams, accomplished by relegating only the last-place finisher in that season and promoting the top three teams from the 1st division. The 2016–17 season is the first for a new league structure. It begins with the teams playing a full home-and-away schedule, resulting in 26 matches for each team. At that time, the league splits into a six-team championship playoff and an eight-team qualifying playoff. All teams' table points and goals carry over fully into the playoffs.
In the championship playoff, each team plays the others home and away again. The top team at the end of the playoff is Superliga champion and enters the UEFA Champions League in the second qualifying round. The second-place team enters the UEFA Europa League in the first qualifying round. The third-place team advances to a one-off playoff match for another Europa League place (if the winner of the Danish Cup finishes in the top three, the match will instead involve the fourth-place team).
The qualifying playoff is split into two groups, with the teams that finished the regular season in 7th, 10th, 11th, and 14th in one group and those finishing 8th, 9th, 12th, and 13th in the other. Each group plays home-and-away within its group.
The top two teams from each group then enter a knockout tournament, with each match over two legs. If the Danish Cup winner is among the top two finishers in either playoff group, it is withdrawn from the knockout playoff and its opponent automatically advances to the tournament final. The winner of that tournament faces the third-place (or fourth-place) team from the championship playoff in a one-off match, with the winner entering the Europa League in the first qualifying round.
The bottom two teams from each group then contest a relegation playoff with several steps, centered on a separate four-team knockout playoff, also consisting totally of two-legged matches:
Attendances
According to soccerlens.com the Danish Superliga was number 11 in Europe in 2009, ahead of strong leagues such as Greece, Austria and Ukraine: http://soccerlens.com/the-top-15-leagues-in-europe/39185/
Broadcasting rights
As of 2008, Modern Times Group owns the rights to broadcast all of the matches from the league, and uses them to broadcast matches on channels TV3+ and TV 2 Sport (through sub licensing). However, the current deal was found by the Danish Competition Authority (Konkurrencestyrelsen) not to comply with the Danish competition legislation. Therefore, a new deal was made on 21 December 2008, dividing the Superliga TV-rights between three parties. The deal amounted to DKK 1,062,300,000 (USD 210 million, EUR 140 million), effective from the 2009–10 season.
Foreign rights
Outside of Scandinavia, IMG holds the rights to the Superliga until the 2011–2012 season, and they have reportedly sold the rights to networks in Greece, Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates, as well as several betting sites. It airs on Terra TV in Brazil.