Liga I (Romanian pronunciation:[ˈliɡaɨnˈtɨj];First League), also spelled asLiga 1 and officially known asSuperLiga for sponsorship reasons,[1] is a professionalassociation football league inRomania and the highest level of theRomanian football league system. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system ofpromotion and relegation from and toLiga II. The teams play 30 matches each in the regular season, before entering the championship play-offs or the relegation play-outs according to their position in the regular table.
Liga I was established in 1909 and commenced play for the1909–10 campaign, being currently 25th inUEFA'sleague coefficient ranking list. It is administered by theLiga Profesionistă de Fotbal, also known by the acronym LPF. Before the2006–07 season, the competition was known asDivizia A, but the name had to be changed following the finding that someone else had registered that trademark.[2]
Starting with 2020, the Liga I has been expanded to a 16-team format. After each team plays the others twice for 30 fixtures, they areranked by total points and then divided according to their position to enter either the championship play-offs or the relegation play-outs. At this stage, the points are halved and criteria such asgoal difference, goals scored etc. are erased completely.
The six clubs which enter the championship play-offs play ten games, while the remaining ten in the relegation play-outs will only play each other once, resulting in nine fixtures. The championship play-offs winners are also crowned winners of the season's Liga I. The 9th and 10th positions in the play-out are relegated directly to theLiga II, while the 7th- and 8th-placed teams will play a two-legged tie against the 3rd and 4th teams from the second league's table. From 2023/24, only 8th placed team will play a two-legged tie against 3rd placed team from second league's table.
Also, the 1st and 2nd teams from the play-out phase will play a one-legged game between each other and the winner will face the last team that completed the play-off phase in a European spot. The winner of that one-legged match will play next season in theUEFA Europa Conference League.[3]
The first official national football tournament was organized in1909 by the recently foundedRomanian Football Federation, then called theAssociation of Athletic Societies in Romania (Romanian:Asociațiunea Societăților Atletice din România). The final matches of the firstRomanian Football Championship were held between December 1909 and January 1910 inBucharest.[4][5] The three pioneer clubs wereOlympia andColentina from Bucharest andUnited fromPloiești. Each team played a fixture against the other two clubs, totalizing a number of three matches disputed, withOlympia București being crowned as champions of the first Romanian Football Championship.[4][6] In the following years, the tournament was structured into regional groups with the winners of each group participating in a playoff with the eventual winners being declared champions. From 1909 until 1921, the championship was organized as a cup with the winner being crowned as Champions of Romania,[4][6] except for between 1916 and 1919, when the competition was suspended due toWorld War I.[7] The champions of this period wereOlympia andColentina, each with two titles, andUnited,Prahova,Venus,Unirea Tricolor București andRomâno-Americana, with one title each.[4][6]
The1921–22 season marked the first time when a league consisting of seven teams was formed. The championship, which had been confined to several regional leagues, became a national competition in 1921 with the foundation of Divizia A andDivizia B. The inaugural Divizia A season was won byChinezul Timișoara.[8] Before the1931–32 season, the competition was dominated by Chinezul andVenus București, with Chinezul winning six championships and Venus two championships during the eleven seasons.[4][8] The1932–33 season saw the rise of another successful team,Ripensia Timișoara, which alongside rivals Venus, won eight of the following nine championships, before the competition was suspended in 1940 due toWorld War II.[4][8]
The post-war years were dominated byUTA Arad,CCA București andPetrolul Ploiești. The 1960s saw the gradual emergence ofDinamo București, with the help from strikersGheorghe Ene andFlorea Dumitrache—both of whom became some of Divizia A's top all-time scorers. The 1970s saw the rise ofDudu Georgescu, from Dinamo București, who was Divizia A's leading scorer for four seasons between 1974 and 1978. He scored an impressive 156 goals and won theEuropean Golden Shoe award for the top scorer in Europe twice, in 1975 and 1977.[9][10] Dinamo București also had two more European Golden Shoe winners in the 1986–87 season in the name ofRodion Cămătaru and in the 1988–89 season in the name ofDorin Mateuţ, with the latter being the last Romanian winner of the trophy.[9] From the1959–60 season all the way to the1999–2000 season all the league championships were won by only seven teams: Steaua (16 titles), Dinamo (14 titles),Universitatea Craiova (4 titles),Rapid București,FC Argeș andUTA Arad (2 titles each), andPetrolul Ploiești (one title).[4]
Dinamo București was the first Romanian team to qualify into the European Champions Cup in the1956–57 season of the competition and Universitatea Craiova was the last team from Romania to qualify in the1991–92 season, before the competition changed its name to the UEFA Champions League. Romanian teams qualified to 35 of the 37 seasons of the European Champions Cup, with Dinamo București having thirteen appearances, Steaua București having ten appearances, Universitatea Craiova having four appearances, Petrolul having three appearances, UTA Arad and FC Argeş having two appearances and Rapid București having one appearance. The most important results for a Romanian team in this competition were achieved by Steaua București which won the trophy in the1985–86 season, and reached the semi-finals in the1987–88 season and another final in the1988–89 season.[5] Other important achievements include Universitatea Craiova which reached the quarter-finals in the1981–82 season and Dinamo București which reached the semi-finals in the1983–84 season.[11][12] However, after the change of the format in1992–93 to the current Champions League format, Romanian champions have achieved limited successes, with Steaua only reaching the group stage three times before the 21st century.
The beginning of the 2000s were dominated by teams from the capital, with Steaua, Dinamo and Rapid winning all the league titles between 2000 and 2007.[4]
At the beginning of the2006–07 season the competition was forced to change its name from Divizia A toLiga I due to a trademark dispute over the name.[2] The change was made on 15 May 2006, and theRomanian Football Federation decided to also rename the lower leagues; thus Divizia B becameLiga II, Divizia C becameLiga III, and so on.[2] The2006–07 season marked the 16th straight time a team from Bucharest won the championship, with Dinamo winning the title. Both2007–08 and2008–09 saw new title winners asCFR Cluj andUnirea Urziceni were crowned champions for the first time.[4] CFR Cluj won their second championship in2009–10, while the2010–11 saw another new winner,Oțelul Galați. Oțelul is the first and only club from the region ofMoldavia to win a national title so far.
CFR Cluj, the 2007–08 winner became the first Romanian team to qualify directly into the2008–09 group stage of theUEFA Champions League, and the first team other than Steaua to qualify to this stage since the beginning of the new Champions League format in1992–93.[13] The2009–10 champions as well as2010–11 ones were guaranteed a direct qualification spot into the group stage as well.[14] The best results in the group stage was obtained by CFR Cluj inthe 2012–13 UEFA Champions League with ten points and third place in a group withManchester United,Braga, andGalatasaray.
The 2010s also brought new league winners in Liga I, withAstra Giurgiu andViitorul Constanța clinching the titles in2015–16 and2016–17 respectively.[15] Since 2017 onwards, CFR Cluj won five consecutive Liga I titles, amassing a total number of eight national titles as of 2022. CFR Cluj obtained the best result of a Romanian team in the group stage in the2019–2020 season of Europa League - 12 points. Also, CFR Cluj became the first Romanian team to qualify to UEFA Conference League group stage, when they obtained 4 points in the inaugural season (i.e.2021–2022).[16]
In June 2022, Liga I officially changed its name into "SuperLiga" for sponsorship reasons, due to Romanian sporting bets agency Superbet sponsoring the competition.
On 19 December 1998,SABMiller bought thenaming rights for four and a half seasons, becoming the first sponsor in the history of the competition. SABMiller changed the name of the competition to "Divizia A Ursus", to promote theirUrsus beer.[17]
Starting with the 2004–05 season,European Drinks & Foods, a Romanian $1.3 billionUSD revenue company, took over as main sponsor and changed the league's name to "Divizia A Bürger", to promote their Bürger beer.[18]
On 11 May 2008,Realitatea Media bought the naming rights and changed the name of the competition to "Liga I Realitatea", to promote theirRealitatea TV station.[19]
In late 2008,European Drinks & Foods again bought the rights and the league was renamed as the "Liga I Frutti Fresh", after one of their soft drinks brand.[20]
For the 2009–10 season, the online betting firmGamebookers purchased the league naming rights and renamed the division "Liga 1 Gamebookers.com".[21]
In July 2010, Bergenbier, a StarBev Group company, bought thenaming rights for four seasons and changed the name of the competition to "Liga I Bergenbier", to promote their Bergenbier beer.[22]
From the 2015–16 season, the French telecommunications corporationOrange became the main sponsor of the Romanian first league, after purchasing the league naming rights, for two years, and renamed the league inLiga 1 Orange.[23]
From the 2017–18 season, the international online gaming operator Betano became the main sponsor of the Romanian first league, after purchasing the league naming rights, for two years, and renamed the league in 'Liga 1 Betano'.
For the 2019–20 season, the national online gaming operator Casa Pariurilor became the main sponsor of the Romanian first league, after purchasing the league naming rights, and renamed the league in 'Casa Liga 1'.
For the 2022–23 season the operator of games in Romania Superbet is the sponsor of the leagues and the name changes to Superliga României.
In 2004,Telesport, a small TV network, bought the broadcasting rights for$28 million. The four seasons contract ended in the summer of 2008. Telesport sold some of the broadcasting rights for matches to other Romanian networks, including,TVR1,Antena 1,Național TV, andKanal D.
On 31 March 2008, Antena 1 withRCS & RDS outbidRealitatea Media andKanal D in the broadcasting rights auction with a bid of €102 million for a three seasons contract.[24]
In March 2014, LPF announced that the rights were sold for a five-year period to a company from the European Union, without specifying the company's name.[25] A month later,Look TV and Look Plus were revealed as the TV stations that would broadcast the games from Liga I andCupa Ligii between 2014 and 2019.[26]
On 27 August 2019, Liga I signed a contract withEA Sports for the rights of the league forFIFA 20. It was the first time that the Liga I had been featured in a sports video game.[27] Liga I has been featured in every FIFA installment since then.