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:
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)