The Macedonian First Football League (Macedonian: Прва македонска фудбалска лига), also called Macedonian First League, 1. MFL, and Prva Liga, is the highest professional football competition in Macedonia. It is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Macedonian football league system and has been operating since the 1992–93 season. It is organized by the Football Federation of Macedonia.
Format
Macedonian First League's former logo
Throughout the 1. MFL history, the number of clubs competing at the top level has been gradually decreased until the 2020–21 season. Below is a complete record of how many teams played in each season throughout the league's history:[citation needed]
18 clubs = 1992–1993
16 clubs = 1993–1995
15 clubs = 1995–1996
14 clubs = 1996–2001
12 clubs = 2001–2014
10 clubs = 2014–2020
12 clubs = 2020–present
The league has 12 teams, and each team plays the other sides three times, for a total of 33 matches each.[2]
Due to the UEFA ranking coefficients ranking (shown below), the winners of the league enter the 1st qualifying round of the Champions League, while the second and third placed teams enter the 1st qualifying round of the UEFA Europa Conference League alongside the winner of the Macedonian Football Cup. At the end of the season, the bottom 2 teams are relegated to the Macedonian Second League while the eighth placed team enter a play-off with the winner of the tie between second placed teams of the two groups in the Macedonian Second League.
UEFA rankings
UEFA country ranking for league participation in 2021–22 European football season (Previous year rank in italics)[3][4]
In 1923, the first national Yugoslav Football Championship was held, and regional championships were also played. The clubs of the Vardar Banovina, territorially similar to present day Macedonia, played within the Belgrade Football Subassociation league until 1927,[7] when a separate Skoplje Football Subassociation league was formed.[8] The champions of the subassociation leagues were granted a place in the qualifiers to the Yugoslav Championship. Gragjanski Skopje became the only Macedonian club to participate in the national league, first in 1935–36 when the championship was played in a cup format,[9] and then in 1938–39, when it was played in a normal league system with Gragjanski finishing 10th out of 12 teams.[10] In 1939, the Yugoslav league system was changed, with the creation of separate Serbian and Croato-Slovenian leagues which served as qualifying leagues for the final phase of the Yugoslav Championship.[11] The clubs from the Skopje Subassociation aimed to qualify to the Serbian League, however only Gragjanski managed to participate, in 1939–40 (5th place)[12] and 1940–41 (8th place).[13]
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