Competition Format
The league is an eight-team system, with each club playing everyone else twice. After the end of the regular season, the top four teams progress to the playoffs. The playoffs are run as a home-and-away semi-finals series, with the winners progressing to a one-match Grand Final.
The league competition phase was initially contested by a three-round, 21-match league system, each team playing every other team three times. This system was in place for the first four seasons of the competition. It was changed to the present two-round, 14-match system in 2008, due to financial difficulties affecting some of the teams in the league.
The playoff competition phase was initially run as a three-team playoff system, in which the Minor Premier (winner of league phase) received a bye and hosting rights for the grand final, with second and third placed teams playing off in a one-game preliminary final. For the 2005-06 season, the NZFC experimented with a five team playoff (see NZFC 2005-06), however this was discontinued and the league reverted to the three-team playoff for the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons.
The teams that win the league phase (the "Minor Premier") and the Grand Final (the "champion") qualify for the OFC Champions League. Should the same team win both the Minor Premiership and the Championship, the second O-League spot will be granted to league runner-up. This had occurred during the 2007-08 season, where Waitakere United won both the league and the final. This resulted in Auckland City FC, league runner-up, to enter the O-League, despite Team Wellington contesting the grand final.
As there are no lower divisions in the Premiership, no promotion and relegation exists, similar to leagues in Australia and in the United States.
Read more about this topic: New Zealand Football Championship
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