Superleague Greece

The Superleague Greece () is the highest professional football league in Greece. It was formed in July 16, 2006 and replaced Alpha Ethniki at the top of the Greek football league system. The league consists of 16 teams and runs from August to May, with teams playing 30 games each. As of May 2009, Superleague Greece is ranked 12th in the UEFA ranking of leagues, based on performances in European competitions over the last five-years. Since the foundation of the first Panhellenic Championship in season 1927-28, only six clubs have won the title, with the " big three" of Athens ( Olympiacos, Panathinaikos and AEK Athens) dominating and only PAOK, Aris and Larissa managing to break their dominance on a few occasions. The current champions are Panathinaikos, who have won in total 20 titles.

History

In 2006, the Superleague Greece replaced Alpha Ethniki as the highest Greek professional football league. Alpha Ethniki had held the position as the highest level of Greek football since 1959 when it replaced the Panhellenic Championship. In 1979, Alpha Ethniki, which had been an amateur competition from its inception, turned professional. Up to then the Panhellenic Championship, a cup competition open only to the largest football associations of Athens, Piraeus, Thessaloniki and Patras, had served as the top Greek league.

Structure

At present, sixteen clubs compete in the Superleague, playing each other in a home and away series. At the end of the season, the bottom three clubs are relegated to Football League. In their place, the top three teams from Football League are promoted. The Superleague is entitled to two entrants into the UEFA Champions League. The Superleague champion directly enters the group stage of the UEFA Champions League. The second through fifth place teams in the Superleague enter a play-off for the second Greek entry. The play-off winner enters the UEFA Champions League's third qualifying round, a two-legged tie from which the winner advances to the play offs of the UEFA Champions League. The winner of the Greek Cup automatically qualifies for the UEFA Europa League, as well as the runners-up of the Superleague play-off. In the play-off for the UEFA Champions League, the teams play each other in a home and away round robin. However, they do not all start with 0 points. Instead, a weighting system applies to the teams' standing at the start of the play-off mini-league. The team finishing fifth in the Superleague will start the play off with 0 points. The fifth place team’s end of season tally of points is used to calculate the sum of the points that other teams will have. The point difference of each of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th team from the fifth place team is then divided by five(if the result is a decimal number it is then rounded to a full number, with .5 or more being rounded up) and the resulting number respectively for each team is the number of points with which they will start the mini-league.http://www.superleaguegreece.net/index.htm

Superleague Greece 2010-11 members

The final positions for the teams occupying rank 2 - 5 in regular season is being determined by the playoffs. Official playoff regulation

AEK, Olympiacos , Panathanaikos and PAOK were founder members of Alpha Ethniki in 1959 and have never been relegated.

Champions

1927-28 to 1958-59: Panhellenic Championship
1959-60 to 2005-06: Alpha Ethniki
2006-07 to present: Superleague Greece

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Performance by club

Statistics

Statistics in Superleague Greece since the 1959-60 season, when the championship was established in its current form.

Top three ranking

Ranking by top three appearances in Superleague Greece.

Seasons in Superleague Greece

The number of seasons that each team (in alphabetical order) has played in the top division until 2010-11. AEK, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos and PAOK are the only teams to have played in the top division in every season since the league's inception in its modern form. The teams in bold participate in the current Superleague season (2010-11).

APOEL avoided relegation in the 1973-1974 season, but were forced to play in the Cypriot A Division the following season due to the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus. Hence they are the only team to have played a single season in the Greek league and not been relegated.

Per geographic region

All the geographic regions of Greece have been represented by at least one team in the first national division. Attica has had the strongest presence with 21 teams, followed by Macedonia and the Peloponnese. The regions of Epirus and the Ionian islands have been represented by only one team each.

UEFA ranking

At the end of 2009, the European rankings were as follows:

Broadcasting rights

Skai TV (Private - free channel) and Nova Sports (Private - pay channel) have taken the broadcasting rights of Superleague Greece. The public channel NET have only the broadcasting rights of Olympiacos and Skoda Xanthi.

On Air

Today