Liga de Primera


The Liga de Primera or Campeonato Nacional de la Primera División del Fútbol Profesional Chileno is a professional association football league in Chile and the highest level of the Chilean football league system. Founded in 1933, it is organized by the Asociación Nacional de Fútbol Profesional. The league is officially known as the Liga de Primera Itaú due to sponsorship by Brazilian bank Itaú.
Throughout its history, the national championship has had different formats, structures and number of participants. The 2025 season is being contested through a single tournament throughout the calendar year. A total of 16 teams participate in the competition and it works with a system of promotion and relegation with the lower category, the Primera B.
A total of 53 clubs have played at least one season in the first division, and 16 have won the title at least once. Its first champion was Deportes Magallanes. Colo-Colo has been the only team to participate in every first division season, as holds the most titles won with 34, followed by Universidad de Chile with 18, Universidad Católica with 16 and Cobreloa with 8, the most titles held by any team outside the capital.

History

Amateurism

The Asociación de Fútbol de Santiago was the first organization in Chile to formally organize a football tournament. It was formed in 1903 and organized non-professional football in Santiago. Thereafter, it was the organization responsible for running the national professional football league in Chile.

Professionalism

In 1933, eight big clubs at that time, namely, Unión Española, Badminton, Colo-Colo, Audax Italiano, Green Cross, Morning Star, Magallanes and Santiago National F.C., founded the Liga Profesional de Football de Santiago on 31 May 1933. The newly formed body was recognised by the Football Federation of Chile on 2 June 1933.
The first edition of professional competition was contested by the eight founding teams and was won by Magallanes after defeating Colo-Colo in a decisive match. In the following year, according to the disposition of Federación de Fútbol de Chile, Liga Profesional returned to integrate with the AFS. As part of the negotiations for reunification, four teams from AFS, namely, Ferroviarios, Carlos Walker, Deportivo Alemán, and Santiago F.C., would join the 1934 professional competition. Moreover, it was also decided that the last six teams in the 1934 competition would be eliminated to form the new second division in 1935. The title of the expanded 1934 edition was again clinched by Magallanes, which won 10 out of the 11 matches that year.
In 1937, the Santiago Professional Football Association was founded - it would be renamed the Central Football Association, becoming the first association to operate independently of the amateur sector. The 1937 championship was the debut season for Santiago Wanderers, the first team to compete from outside the capital, however, it had to play all its matches in Santiago and as a guest, which meant that no points were credited to it in the standings. The tournament was finally won by Colo-Colo, who under its number one star went undefeated.
In the 1940 championship, the traditional two-wheel system was restored and Universidad de Chile had a great squad under the leadership of Luis Tirado and with players such as Víctor Alonso, the tournament's top scorer with 20 goals, Abanés Passalacqua and goalkeeper Eduardo Simián, and was crowned professional champions for the first time after only three years in the top division.
In 1947, Colo Colo got their fifth star under the guidance of their coach Enrique Sorrel and who was awarded the title of host of the South American Championship of Champions. In the 1948 tournament, historic Italian players such as goalkeeper Daniel Chirinos, defender Carlos Varela and strikers Juan Zárate and Domingo Romo once again led Audax Italiano to its third professional title.
In 1949, Universidad Católica won its first league title, featuring figures such as Chilean national team member Sergio Livingstone, Andrés Prieto, Raimundo Infante, Fernando Riera and Argentine soccer star José Manuel Moreno. In the decisive match, Católica defeated Audax Italiano 2-1 with a strong performance from Infante. Months earlier, the team had won the Torneo de Consuelo, defeating Bádminton F.C. 3-2.
In the 1950 championship, Everton de Viña del Mar was crowned champion for the first time in its history and in the process broke the capital's hegemony, becoming the first provincial champion after defeating Unión Española in the final match with a solitary goal from its leading striker, René Meléndez. In addition, one of the founding clubs of the First Division, Badminton, merged with Ferroviarios to form Ferrobádminton.
In 1960, Colo-Colo won its eighth title, beating Santiago Wanderers by 6 points and its arch rival, Universidad de Chile, by 9 points. That tournament also marked the beginning of the crisis for Magallanes, when it was relegated for the first time in its history. The Carabelero team were relegated due to the average standings of the preceding three years.
File:LeonelSanchez1959.jpg|left|thumb|269x269px|Leonel Sánchez, idol of Club Universidad de Chile
In the 1961 tournament, Universidad de Chile and Universidad Católica tied in points and forced two final matches in which, after a draw in the first leg, the Cruzados team won the return leg by 3-2, with a penalty kick by Alberto Fouillioux at 85 minutes, a score that led it to obtain its third national title. That year, Audax Italiano made a big splash in the transfer market, by bringing in Brazilian national team player and World Cup player Zizinho, who scored only 3 goals in 16 games, and also his compatriot Ceninho, who scored only 8 goals.
In 1962, Universidad de Chile, who provided the most players to the Chilean national team in the World Cup held in Chile, won the final match of that year's championship against Universidad Católica, semifinalist of the 1962 Copa Libertadores, tieing Católica with three titles up to that point. Thus, Chilean football was marked in that decade by the Clásico Universitario.
The arrival of the 1970s saw Colo-Colo, in the national championship, obtain its tenth star after seven years, by beating Unión Española in a close final, counting on great figures such as Francisco Valdés, Carlos Caszely, Leonel Sánchez, Humberto Cruz, Juan Carlos Gangas, Víctor Zelada, the Uruguayan José María Piriz and the Brazilian Elson Beyruth.
In 1971, the tournament returned to the round-robin system, with the Unión San Felipe team, coached by Luis Santibáñez, winning the championship. After beating Universidad de Chile in the final stretch, it lifted its first and only title, holding to this day the record of being the only team to win consecutive Second Division and First Division tournaments, respectively.
The 1972 national tournament, with a total attendance of over 3,000,000, holds the record of the season with the largest cumulative attendance in the history of Chilean football. In this tournament, Colo-Colo won its eleventh title relegating Unión Española to second place by three points in the table, using almost the same squad that was champion in 1970, but with the technical figure of Luis Álamos, who currently holds the record of the technical director with the most First Division titles. That year was also marked by Everton's relegation, finishing last in that tournament and the return of Palestino, who won the Second Division title and returned to the top flight after a two year absence.

Present

On 10 February 2021, with the 2020 season postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Universidad Católica won the first three-time championship in its history, obtaining the fifteenth title, and the fifth of the last seven championships in Chile. Near the bottom of the table, Colo-Colo required a playoff to stay in the top flight for the first time in its history, which it managed to overcome beating Universidad de Concepción 1-0, with a goal from Argentine Pablo Solari, in a match that was played on 17 February 2021 at the Estadio Fiscal de Talca.
The 2024 tournament is considered by fans and analysts as the best ever seasons of the long tournament format after a fierce fight between Colo Colo and Universidad de Chile putting them almost 20 points ahead of the third place, which was the surprising Deportes Iquique.

Division levels

Format

The current format has been in place since 2018 with 16 teams competing in the league, playing against each other twice, once at home and once away. The team that places first at the end of the season are crowned champions, while the bottom two teams are relegated.

Relegation and promotion

Currently, the two teams that place bottom in the season, are relegated to Primera B de Chile, and replaced by the champions and the playoff winners of the second division.

Qualification for international competitions

Chile is given 8 total berths to CONMEBOL competitions, 4 for Copa Libertadores and 4 for Copa Sudamericana. The league champions qualify for the following year's Copa Libertadores, as well as the runners-up and the third-placed team. The fourth berth is given to the champions of the Copa Chile. The teams placing fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh qualify for the following year's Copa Sudamericana.

Sponsorships

Rivalries

  • Colo-Colo – Universidad de Chile '
  • Universidad de Chile – Universidad Católica '
  • Colo-Colo – Universidad Católica '
  • Colo-Colo – Cobreloa '
  • Santiago Wanderers – Everton '
  • Unión Española – Audax Italiano – Palestino '
  • Deportes Iquique – San Marcos de Arica '
  • Cobreloa – Cobresal '
  • Rangers – Curicó Unido ''''

    Current teams

A total of 54 teams have participated throughout the 94 seasons of the Primera División, of which 16 have won the championship.
Colo-Colo is the only team to have played all 94 seasons of Chilean football in the Primera División. In second place is Unión Española, which did not play in 1939 due to the Spanish Civil War, and played in Primera B between 1998 and 1999.
Sixteen teams will take part in the league for the 2026 season.