Bulgarian A Professional Football Group
The Bulgarian A Football Group (Bulgarian: "А" Футболна Група) commonly known as A PFG (Bulgarian: А ПФГ) or A Group (Bulgarian: А Група) is the top division of the Bulgarian football league system. The league is sponsored by Victoria FATA Insurance and therefore is officially known as Victoria A Football Group (Bulgarian: Виктория "А" Футболна Група) since 2011. A Group determines the champion of Bulgaria. Contested by sixteen clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the second tier of the Bulgarian football league pyramid - B Group. Seasons run from August to May, each team playing twice against all the other, once home and once away, totalling 240 matches. Most games are played on Saturdays and Sundays, with some played on Monday evenings. A Group was inaugurated in 1924 as BSFC and it is playing as a league format from 1948. It is administered by the Bulgarian Professional Football League and the Bulgarian Football Union.
A total of 64 clubs have competed in A Group. In season 2012/13, Pirin (Gotse Delchev) compete for their first time in A Group. Since 1948 only 11 teams have been crowned champions of Bulgaria. The two most successful clubs are CSKA Sofia (31 championships) and Levski Sofia (26 championships). The current champions are Ludogorets Razgrad, who won their first championship title in their first A Group season.
The champion of A Group has the right to take part in the UEFA Champions League from the stage allowed by the league's coefficient. The teams that finish 2nd and 3rd in the final standings take part in the UEFA Europa League together with the Bulgarian Cup winner. The last two teams are directly relegated to B Group. Only in season 2012/13, four teams will relegate to B Group and two will be promoted from B Group - from season 2013/14 the league will be contested of 14 teams, 2 teams less then other seasons. The domestic cup for the league is the Bulgarian Cup. In every season, the teams in A Group start participating in the competition from Round 2 (Round of 32).
Read more about Bulgarian A Professional Football Group: Competition Format, A Group TV, Sponsorship, Performance By Club, Cities, A Group Eternal Ranking 1948-2012, Interesting Facts, UEFA Ranking, Referees, Famous Individuals
Famous quotes containing the words bulgarian, professional, football and/or group:
“Americans are rather like bad Bulgarian wine: they don’t travel well.”
—Bernard Falk (1943–1990)
“Men seem more bound to the wheel of success than women do. That women are trained to get satisfaction from affiliation rather than achievement has tended to keep them from great achievement. But it has also freed them from unreasonable expectations about the satisfactions that professional achievement brings.”
—Phyllis Rose (b. 1942)
“...I’m not money hungry.... People who are rich want to be richer, but what’s the difference? You can’t take it with you. The toys get different, that’s all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It’s all relative.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“Now, honestly: if a large group of ... demonstrators blocked the entrances to St. Patrick’s Cathedral every Sunday for years, making it impossible for worshipers to get inside the church without someone escorting them through screaming crowds, wouldn’t some judge rule that those protesters could keep protesting, but behind police lines and out of the doorways?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)