K-League - League Summary

League Summary

The K-League season typically begins around March/April and runs to late November each year. The number of games, clubs and the systems used have varied through the years, but for 2009 the league will operate with a full stage regular season followed by a top six championship playoff system.

The sixteen member clubs play each other twice in the regular season giving a total of 30 matches. The top six sides at the end of the regular season will enter the championship playoffs, which decide final standings of the season among the six. In the first two matches, the third-placed team will face the sixth-placed team and the fourth-placed team will face the fifth-placed team, with the two winners then playing off for the right to face the second-placed team. The winner of that match will then progress to the two-legged championship playoff final where the first-placed side lie in wait, with the overall winner of the home and away series being crowned champions for 2009.

The K-League champions, runner-up and third place gain entry to the AFC Champions League the following season, with the exception of Sangmu, due to their unique status as an army team, and therefore non-professional.

A number of the member clubs are owned by major Korean Chaebols, and the club names reflect that fact. Clubs have adopted local city names in an effort to integrate themselves more with the local communities; for example, Daewoo evolved over the years into Daewoo Royals, Pusan Daewoo Royals, Busan I'ons and latterly Busan IPark.

In 1996, K-League franchise structure was changed hugely. Originally, When the franchise system was introduced in 1987, K-League club's franchise were big cities of South Korea like Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Gwangju, Daejeon. But Theses cities are also franchise of Korean Baseball teams. Some K-League clubs gave up big city franchise and relocated to mid sized-small city franchise like Ulsan, Pohang in 1991. and In 1996, Due to Decentralization policy in K-League, K-League clubs in Seoul were moved to Seoul's satellite small city Anyang, Bucheon, Cheonan. Also Samsung was joined in 1996, But Samsung was chosed Suwon, mid sized-small city franchise. As a result, In 1996 K-League franchise structure changed to mid sized-small city franchise totly.

Following the 2002 FIFA World Cup, leaders of the K-League had hoped to transfer South Korea’s passion for its National Team to the domestic league. However, the K-League continued to flounder. Although a number of K-League clubs have relocated in the past, the Lucky Goldstar (LG) corporation caused a huge controversy at the end of 2003 when they made the decision to uproot their Anyang LG Cheetahs from the Seoul satellite city of Anyang and move into the empty Seoul World Cup Stadium, becoming FC Seoul. Then following the 2005 season SK announced it was moving the Bucheon SK FC to the island of Jeju, where they became Jeju United.

In the 2009 season, Gangwon FC (Head Coach: Choi Soon-Ho, former Ulsan Hyundai Mipo Dolphin head coach) joined the K-League as its 15th member club. As such, the K-League had one or more club in every Korean Province (Gyeonggi, Gyeongsang, Jeolla, Chungcheong, Gangwon, and Jeju). This is the first time in domestic Korean professional sports history that there has been at least two clubs in each Korean province.

On April 5, 2010, Gwangju City has announced a plan to establish a football club by end of 2010 & to join the league from the 2011 season. On October 12, 2010, the club was approved to join the league as 16th member club.

On October 5, 2011, the league announced a plan to introduce a relegation system from 2012 season. A number of teams of the league will decreased to 12 teams from 2013 season. 4 teams will be relegated to next level league based on the standing of 2012 season. And, the league introduced a split system like Scottish Premier League from the 2012 season.

The league introduced the relegation system from the 2012 season. According to new relegation rule, 2 teams each will be relegated to lower level league based on the standing of 2012 and 2013 season, respectively (total: 4 teams). The league also changed the amount of entrance fee from 1 billion to 500 million Korean won.