I want to understand...

**melissadamonkey** · 04/10/2004, 4:46 PM

I know there are 4 divisions in the league...
I know there are certain amount of teams in each division...
what I dont know, or I dont understand, is how does the league play?

How does the teams move up in the divisions, and how is it scored for the team to be the best in its division, is it possible for teams to move from division to division, and if so, how?

So confused.

American football is so much simpler to understand... perhaps because we dont have a million teams to choice from... so if anyone out there can simplify this for me... would be awesome!

**strangeirish** · 04/10/2004, 4:55 PM

What league are you talking about?

PS. Goooooo...............Jags

**dcfcsteve** · 05/10/2004, 12:27 AM

Sounds like you're a bit confused with the English football league. This is a site for soccer in Irish, and there's only 2 senior football divisions here.

The first one, two or three teams (depending on league and country) in one league at the end of a season replace the bottom one, two or three teams in the league above in the next season. It's called promotion and relegation, and it means that there's more to play for than just a single title. Much more fun than the limited gene pool of American football, as it means you don't have to play the same teams over, and over, and over, and over.......

Go Kerry....!

**paudie** · 05/10/2004, 1:13 PM

dcfc steve explained promotion and relegation but you also asked about how the division winners are decided.

In most leagues in Europe every team plays every other teams twice (home and away). Three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw (tie) and zero for a defeat.

When all the games have been played the team with the most points wins the championship.

The same ranking system is used for deciding which teams go up and down between divisions at the end of each season.

In Ireland it's slightly different as there are only 10 teams in the top division so to give teams more games they play each other 4 times a season. That's going to change next season but I won't confuse you anymore.

Countries in South America tend to have more complicated systems with playoffs at the end of the season.

If you go to www.soccerbot.com you can spend hours of fun looking at the current league tables for lots of the leagues around the world.

**Roo69** · 05/10/2004, 1:43 PM

Only 2 Divisions in Ireland, the Premier and the 1st Division. Promotion and relegation is as follows for this season only as there has been a change in the structure. 1 Team relageted from the premier into the 1st division and 3 teams promoted from the 1st division into the premier. Leaving the premier with 12 teams and the 1st division with 10 teams.

each team plays eachother home and away, but because the way the league is set up some teams will play againist the same team twice at home and once waway, or visa versa, once at home and twice away, this evens itself out over the season and all teams play 33 games.

It is 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a defeat. Who ever has the most points in the Premier wins the title, who ever gets the least amount of points in the premier gets relagated to the 1st division.

Who ever gets the most amount of points in the 1st division wins it and gets promoted to the premier along with the 2nd and 3rd placed teams.

Jesus i'm confussed now myself !