History
The first national league in Iran after the revolution was founded in 1989 with the name of Qods League. Esteghlal could become the league champion.
In 1991, the national league was named to Azadegan League in honor of the Iranian prisoners of war who were released. The number of teams, playing in the league, varied from year to year. Pas and Saipa dominated the league in the first four years. Pas and Esteghlal both were also able to capture Asian Club Championships in the early 1990s. By the mid-90s Persepolis and Esteghlal regained their dominant form and the league champions in the period of 1995-2001 was either Esteghlal or Persepolis.
Until 2001 the league was the first-highest division football league in Iran, but that changed when the Iranian Football Federation decided to start a professional league. The IPL was created and since then, the Azadegan League became the second-highest division in the Iranian football league system.
Read more about this topic: Azadegan League
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)