History
Up until the late seventies, football in Saudi Arabia was organised on a regional basis, with the only nationwide tournament being the King's Cup. In 1976, it was deemed that local football, and transportation links, have improved sufficiently to organise a national league. Hence the Saudi League was launched with 8 clubs participating.
In 1981 it was decided to increase the number of clubs and add a second division. The league competition for the 1981–82, known as the ranking league, featured 18 clubs with the top eight qualifying for the first division and the bottom ten to the new second division. The number of first division clubs was later increased to 12 in the 1984–85 season.
In 1990 it was decided to revamp local competitions and to introduce professional football. A new league championship was formed called "The Custodian of The Two Holy Mosques League Cup", which was a two stage championship. The first stage was a regular double round-robin league competition with the top 4 qualifying to the final knockout stage, called the golden square. Clubs were allowed to sign players on a professional basis making the league semi professional.
In 2007 It was decided to split the two stages, with the league reverting to a standard double round-robin competition, and a new domestic competition cup competition formed called "The Custodian of The Two Holy Mosques Champions Cup". This cup will feature the top six finishers in the league plus the winners of the Crown Prince Cup and the Prince Faisal Cup. This format will take effect from the 2007–08 season onwards.
Read more about this topic: Saudi Professional League
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)