La Liga


The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known as the Primera División or La Liga, and officially known as LaLiga EA Sports for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Spain and the highest level of the Spanish football league system. It is controlled by the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional and is contested by 20 teams over a 38-matchday period.
Since its inception, 62 teams have competed in La Liga, with nine teams crowned champions. Real Madrid and Barcelona have dominated the competition, winning 36 and 28 titles respectively. In the 1940s, Valencia, Atlético Madrid, and Barcelona emerged as the strongest clubs. Real Madrid and Barcelona led the charge in the 1950s, each winning four titles. During the 1960s and 1970s, Real Madrid dominated with fourteen titles, with Atlético Madrid winning four. During the 1980s and 1990s, Real Madrid remained prominent, while the Basque clubs of Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad enjoyed success, each winning two titles. From the 1990s onward, Barcelona have been the most successful club, winning seventeen titles, with Real Madrid close behind. La Liga has seen other champions, including Valencia and Deportivo La Coruña.
As of the 2024–25 season, La Liga is ranked third in the UEFA coefficient rankings based on performances in European competitions over the past five seasons, behind the English Premier League and Italian Serie A. La Liga has led the coefficient rankings for more years than any league, and has also produced the continent's top-rated club more times than any other league overall. La Liga clubs have won the most UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup titles, and its players have accumulated the highest number of Ballon d'Or awards, The Best FIFA Men's Player awards and UEFA Men's Player of the Year awards.
La Liga is one of the most popular professional sports leagues globally, with an average attendance of 26,933 for league matches in the 2018–19 season. This is the eighth-highest of any domestic professional sports league in the world and the third-highest of any professional association football league in the world, behind fellow Big Five leagues the Premier League and the Bundesliga. La Liga is also the seventh wealthiest professional sports league in the world by revenue, after the NFL, MLB, the NBA, the Premier League, the NHL, and the Bundesliga.
From 2008 to 2016, it was sponsored by Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria and known as Liga BBVA. Then, from 2016 to 2023, it was sponsored by Banco Santander and known as LaLiga Santander. Since 2023, it has been sponsored by Electronic Arts and is known as LaLiga EA Sports.

Competition format

The competition format follows the usual double round-robin format. During the course of a season, which lasts from August to May, each club plays every other club twice, once at home and once away, for 38 matches. Teams receive three points for a win, one point for a draw, and no points for a loss. Teams are ranked by total points, with the highest-ranked club crowned champion at the end of the season.

Promotion and relegation

A system of promotion and relegation exists between the Primera División and the Segunda División. The three lowest placed teams in La Liga are relegated to the Segunda División, and the top two teams from the Segunda División promoted to La Liga, with an additional club promoted after a series of play-offs involving the third, fourth, fifth and sixth placed clubs. Below is a complete record of how many teams played in each season throughout the league's history;
Period of clubs
1929–193410 clubs
1934–194112 clubs
1941–195014 clubs
1950–197116 clubs
1971–198718 clubs
1987–199520 clubs
1995–199722 clubs
1997–present20 clubs

Tie breaker rules

If points are equal between two or more clubs, the rules are:
  • If all clubs involved have played each other twice:
  • * If the tie is between two clubs, then the tie is broken using the head-to-head goal difference for those clubs.
  • * If the tie is between more than two clubs, then the tie is broken using the games the clubs have played against each other:
  • ** a) head-to-head points
  • ** b) head-to-head goal difference
  • If two legged games between all clubs involved have not been played, or the tie is not broken by the rules above, it is broken using:
  • * a) total goal difference
  • * b) total goals scored
  • If the tie is still not broken, the winner will be determined by Fair Play scales. These are:
  • * yellow card, 1 point
  • * doubled yellow card/ejection, 2 points
  • * direct red card, 3 points
  • * suspension or disqualification of coach, executive or other club personnel, 5 points
  • * misconduct of the supporters: mild 5 points, serious 6 points, very serious 7 points
  • * stadium closure, 10 points
  • * if the Competition Committee removes a penalty, the points are also removed
  • If the tie is still not broken, it will be resolved with a tie-break match in a neutral stadium.

    Qualification for European competitions

Current criteria

The top four teams in La Liga qualify for the subsequent season's UEFA Champions League league stage. The winners of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League also qualify for the subsequent season's UEFA Champions League league stage.
The fifth place team in La Liga and the winner of the Copa del Rey also qualify for the subsequent season's UEFA Europa League group stage. However, if the winner also finished in the top five places in La Liga, then this place reverts to the team that finished sixth in La Liga. Furthermore, the sixth place team qualifies for the subsequent season's UEFA Conference League play-off round.
The number of places allocated to Spanish clubs in UEFA competitions is dependent upon the position a country holds in the UEFA country coefficients, which are calculated based upon the performance of teams in UEFA competitions in the previous five years. As of the end of the 2023–24 season, the ranking of Spain is second.

History

Foundation

In April 1928, José María Acha, a director at Arenas de Getxo, first proposed the idea of a national league in Spain. After much debate about the size of the league and who would take part, the Real Federación Española de Fútbol eventually agreed on the ten teams who would form the first Primera División in 1929. Arenas, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad and Real Unión were all selected as previous winners of the Copa del Rey. Atlético Madrid, Espanyol and Europa qualified as Copa del Rey runners-up and Racing de Santander qualified through a knockout competition. Only three of the founding clubs have never been relegated from the Primera División.

1930s: Athletic Bilbao dominate

Although Barcelona won the first Liga in 1929 and Ricardo Zamora's Real Madrid won their first titles in 1932 and 1933, it was Athletic Bilbao that set the early pace winning La Liga in 1930, 1931, 1934 and 1936, and they also achieved the biggest win in La Liga history by beating Barcelona 12–1; This team, coached by Fred Pentland, is known by the nickname First historic squad, notably forming an attacking partnership with Bata, Guillermo Gorostiza, José Iraragorri, Chirri II and Lafuente. In 1935, Real Betis, then known as Betis Balompié, won their only title to date. Primera División was suspended during the Spanish Civil War.
In 1937, the teams in the Republican area of Spain, with the notable exception of the two Madrid clubs, competed in the Mediterranean League and Barcelona emerged as champions. Seventy years later, on 28 September 2007, Barcelona requested the Royal Spanish Football Federation to recognise that title as a Liga title. This action was taken after RFEF was asked to recognise Levante's Copa de la España Libre win as equivalent to Copa del Rey trophy. Nevertheless, the governing body of Spanish football has not made an outright decision yet.

1940s: Atlético Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia emerge

When the Primera División resumed after the Spanish Civil War, it was Atlético Aviación, Valencia, and Barcelona that emerged as the strongest clubs. Atlético were only awarded a place during the 1939–40 season as a replacement for Real Oviedo, whose ground had been damaged during the war. The club subsequently won its first Liga title and retained it in 1941. While other clubs lost players to exile, execution, and as casualties of the war, the Atlético team was reinforced by a merger. The young, pre-war squad of Valencia had also remained intact and in the post-war years matured into champions, gaining three Liga titles in 1942, 1944, and 1947. They were also runners-up in 1948 and 1949.
Athletic Bilbao was one of the clubs most affected by the war, since many of its players went into exile in Latin America and very few returned. But thanks to a search for young talents, they managed to form the well-known Second historic squad made up of Rafael Iriondo, Venancio Pérez, José Luis Panizo, Agustín Gaínza and the mythical scorer Telmo Zarra. They won a La Liga and Copa del Generalísimo double in 1943 and won the Cup again in 1944, 1945 and 1950, in addition to an Copa Eva Duarte. Sevilla also enjoyed a brief golden era, finishing as runners-up in 1940 and 1942 before winning their only title to date in 1946.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Spain, Barcelona began to emerge as a force under the legendary Josep Samitier. A Spanish footballer for both Barcelona and Real Madrid, Samitier cemented his legacy with Barcelona. During his playing career with Barcelona he scored 133 goals, won the inaugural La Liga title and five Copa Del Rey. In 1944, Samitier returned to Barcelona as a coach and guided them in winning their second La Liga title in 1945. Under Samitier and legendary players César Rodríguez, Josep Escolà, Estanislau Basora and Mariano Gonzalvo, Barcelona dominated La Liga in the late 1940s, winning back to back La Liga titles in 1948 and 1949. The 1940s proved to be a successful season for Barcelona, winning three La Liga titles and one Copa Del Rey, but the 1950s proved to be a decade of dominance, not just from Barcelona, but from Real Madrid.