Country Austria First played 1892 Clubs 15,378 | National team Austria Registered players 280,000 | |
Governing body Austrian Football Association | ||
Football is a popular sport in Austria. The Austrian Football Association, the ÖFB (Österreichischer Fußball-Bund), was founded in 1904 and has been a member of FIFA since then. Despite the sport's popularity, except for a successful streak in the early 1930s, the country's national team has not been successful in tournaments. Austria played their first ever European championship as a qualifier in 2016, but finished last in their group and failed to advance. Their only prior appearance in the European championship was in 2008 (when it co-hosted the championship with Switzerland and was thus exempt from qualification), but was promptly eliminated also at the group stage.
In the World Cup, Austria has a slightly better record, achieving fourth and third place in 1934 and 1954, respectively. Other than that, Austria either did not enter (1930), did not qualify (1966, 1970, 1974, 1986, 1994, 2002, 2006, 2010), withdrew (1938, 1950, 1962), or was eliminated at the group stages (1958, 1978, 1982, 1990, 1998).
League system
The Bundesliga is the highest national league-club competition in Austria. It has ten teams, as does the second tier is the First Division (Erste Liga). The third tier consists of three parallel divisions which are the regional leagues (Regionalliga). These cover the different regions of Austria as follows: the East (Regionalliga Ost), which comprises teams from Vienna, Lower Austria, and Burgenland; the Central (Regionalliga Mitte), featuring teams from Styria, Carinthia, Upper Austria, and East Tyrol; and the West (Regionalliga West), competed for by teams from Salzburg, Tyrol, and Vorarlberg. The fourth tier is the state league (Landesliga), with the 2. Landesliga as the fifth tier in Lower Austria and Vienna. Most states have 7 to 10 official tiers, but in Vienna unofficial tiers exist under the normal tiers. They are not organized by the ÖFB, but theoretically the champions of these tiers can promote to the official ÖFB-tiers.
Below shows how the current system works.