Russian Premier League

Russian Premier League

Countries	Russia
Confederation	UEFA
Founded	2001
Number of teams	16
Levels on pyramid	1
Relegation to	Russian First Division
Domestic cup(s)	Russian Cup
International cup(s)	Champions League Europa League
Current champions	Rubin Kazan (2009)
Most championships	Spartak Moscow (9 titles)*
Website	http://www.rfpl.org
2010 season * Incl. Rus. Top League and Rus. Top Division titles

The Russian Premier League (Russian: Российская футбольная премьер-лига), currently called Rosgosstrakh Russian Football Championship (Russian: Росгосстрах — Чемпионат России по футболу), due to sponsorship reasons, is the top division of Russian football. There are 16 teams in the competition. The league has three Champion's League qualifying places given to teams who finish in the top three at the end of the season and two Europa League places to teams who finish fourth and fifth. Relegation to the Russian First Division are given to teams who finish bottom and second-bottom at the end of the season. The Russian Premier League was established in 2001 and succeeded the Top Division, the difference being that the Top Division was run by the Professional Football League of Russia, and the creation of the Premier League gave the clubs a greater degree of independence.

The Russian league has improved considerably of late, and the Russian Premier League is now ranked 6th by UEFA.

Rubin Kazan are the current Russian Premier League champions.

History

After the break-up of the Soviet Union, starting in 1992, each former Soviet republic organized an independent national championship. In Russia, the six Russian teams who had played in the Soviet Top League in 1991 (CSKA Moscow, Spartak Moscow, Torpedo Moscow, Dynamo Moscow, Spartak Vladikavkaz, and Lokomotiv Moscow) were supplemented with 14 teams from lower divisions to organize a 20-team Russian Top Division. The Top Division was further divided into two groups to reduce the total number of matches. The number of teams in the Top Division was gradually reduced to 18 in 1993 and 16 in 1994. Since then, the Russian Top Division (and subsequently the Premier League) has consisted of 16 teams, except for a short-lived experiment with having two more teams in 1996 and 1997.

Spartak Moscow was the dominant force in the Top Division, winning nine of the first ten titles. Spartak-Alania Vladikavkaz was the only team which managed to break Spartak's dominance, winning the Top Division title in 1995.

Lokomotiv Moscow won the title twice, and CSKA Moscow three times.

In 2007, Zenit St. Petersburg climbed to the top, winning the title for the first time in their history in Russian professional football; they had also won a Soviet title in 1984. 2008 brought the pinnacle of the rise of Rubin Kazan, a club entirely new to the Russian top flight, as it had never even competed in the Soviet Top League.

Competition

Russian Premier League match between Zenit and Dynamo (the last Zenit's match on the Kirov Stadium, stadium had been already partially demolished. The stadium will call as "Gazprom Arena")

Teams in the Russian Premier League play each other twice, once at home and once away, for a total of 30 matches. Three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss. If teams are level on points, the tie-breakers are the number of wins, then the goal difference, followed by several other factors. If the teams are tied for the first position, the tie-breakers are the number of wins, then head-to-head results. If the teams tied for the first place cannot be separated by these tie-breakers, a championship play-off is ordered.

As of 2008, the champions and the runners-up qualify for the UEFA Champions League group stage. The third-placed team qualifies for the Champions League second qualifying round. The fourth- and fifth-placed teams qualify for the newly named UEFA Europa League. The bottom two teams are relegated to the First Division.

Unlike other European football leagues, the league typically runs in summer, from March to November, to avoid playing games under the cold and snowy weather in winter.

Youth championship

The Youth championship (Russian: Молодежное первенство), also known as Youth teams championship (Russian: Первенство молодёжных команд), Reserve team tournament (Russian: Турнир среди дублирующих составов) or Reserves tournament (Russian: Турнир дублёров), full name Youth football championship of Russia between teams of clubs of the Premier League (Russian: Молодёжное Первенство России по футболу среди команд клубов Премьер-Лиги), is a league that runs in parallel to the Russian Premier League and includes the youth or reserve teams of the Russian Premier League teams. The number of players a team can have on the pitch at a time that are over 21 years of age or without a Russian citizenship is limited. 16 teams participate in the league. Matches are commonly played a day before the match of the senior teams of the respective teams. All of the Russian Premier League teams are obliged to have a youth team that would participate in the Youth championship. The teams that are promoted from the Russian First Division and do not have a youth team must create one. The teams in the league are not relegated based on their final league position, but on the league position of their respective clubs' senior teams. This is similar to the system in the Premier Reserve League of England.

The 2009 youth champion is Zenit.

It has to be noted however that some Premier League clubs have three teams. Apart from the senior team and the team that plays in the Youth championship a team might have another senior team that plays in a lower division of Russian football and serves as the farm team for the main team. Some examples include Lokomotiv-2, and Rubin-2, playing in the Russian Second Division. Also of note is that for example Lokomotiv-2 has a youth team of its own, participating in the Amateur Football League. So a total of 4 teams for Lokomotiv: Premier League, Youth Championship, Second Division and Amateur League.

2010 clubs

In the 2010 season, the following teams will compete in the Russian Premier League:

Champions and top scorers

Season	Champion	Runner-up	3rd position	Top scorer
1992*	Spartak Moscow	Alania Vladikavkaz	Dinamo Moscow	Veli Kasumov (Dinamo Moscow, 16 goals - 1-8 place) Yuri Matveyev (Uralmash, 20 goals - 9-20 place)
1993*	Spartak Moscow (2)	Rotor Volgograd	Dinamo Moscow	Victor Panchenko (KamAZ Naberezhnye Chelny, 21 goals)
1994*	Spartak Moscow (3)	Dinamo Moscow	Lokomotiv Moscow	Igor Simutenkov (Dinamo Moscow, 21 goals)
1995*	Alania Vladikavkaz	Lokomotiv Moscow	Spartak Moscow	Oleg Veretennikov (Rotor Volgograd, 25 goals)
1996*	Spartak Moscow (4)	Alania Vladikavkaz	Rotor Volgograd	Aleksandr Maslov (Rostselmash, 23 goals)
1997*	Spartak Moscow (5)	Rotor Volgograd	Dinamo Moscow	Oleg Veretennikov (Rotor Volgograd, 22 goals)
1998**	Spartak Moscow (6)	CSKA Moscow	Lokomotiv Moscow	Oleg Veretennikov (Rotor Volgograd, 22 goals)
1999**	Spartak Moscow (7)	Lokomotiv Moscow	CSKA Moscow	Georgi Demetradze (Alania Vladikavkaz, 21 goals)
2000**	Spartak Moscow (8)	Lokomotiv Moscow	Torpedo Moscow	Dmitri Loskov (Lokomotiv Moscow, 18 goals)
2001**	Spartak Moscow (9)	Lokomotiv Moscow	Zenit Saint Petersburg	Dmitri Vyazmikin (Torpedo Moscow, 18 goals)
2002	Lokomotiv Moscow	CSKA Moscow	Spartak Moscow	Rolan Gusev (CSKA Moscow, 15 goals) Dmitri Kirichenko (CSKA Moscow, 15 goals)
2003	CSKA Moscow	Zenit Saint Petersburg	Rubin Kazan	Dmitri Loskov (Lokomotiv Moscow, 14 goals)
2004	Lokomotiv Moscow (2)	CSKA Moscow	Krylya Sovetov Samara	Aleksandr Kerzhakov (Zenit St. Petersburg, 18 goals)
2005	CSKA Moscow (2)	Spartak Moscow	Lokomotiv Moscow	Dmitri Kirichenko (FC Moscow, 14 goals)
2006	CSKA Moscow (3)	Spartak Moscow	Lokomotiv Moscow	Roman Pavlyuchenko (Spartak Moscow, 18 goals)
2007	Zenit Saint Petersburg	Spartak Moscow	CSKA Moscow	Roman Pavlyuchenko (Spartak Moscow, 14 goals) Roman Adamov (FC Moscow, 14 goals)
2008	Rubin Kazan	CSKA Moscow	Dinamo Moscow	Vágner Love (CSKA Moscow, 20 goals)
2009	Rubin Kazan (2)	Spartak Moscow	Zenit Saint Petersburg	Welliton (Spartak Moscow, 21 goals)
* The league was named Top League ** The league was named Top Division

Zenit players celebrating their 2007 triumph

UEFA Ranking

National League Ranking at the beginning of the 2009 season

• 3. Serie A
• 4. Fußball-Bundesliga
• 5. Ligue 1
• 6. Russian Premier League
• 7. Ukrainian Premier League
• 8. Liga I

(see UEFA coefficients full list for more information)

All-time table

As of end of 2009 season

Champions (Players)