Belarusian Premier League

The Belarusian Premier League or the Vyšejšaja Liha or the Vysheyshaya Liga (Belarusian: Вышэйшая ліга, Russian: Высшая лига, "Top League") is the top division of professional football in Belarus, and is organized by the Belarusian Football Federation. The number of teams in the competition has varied over the years from as high as 17 (1992–93 season) to as low as 11 (2012). As of 2016, the league includes 16 teams. Each team plays every other team twice during the course of the season. At the end of the season, the two teams with the fewest points are automatically relegated to the Belarusian First League, while the third worst team plays a promotion-relegation playoff against the third best team from the second tier. The top two teams from the Belarusian First League automatically win promotion to the Premier League. Shakhtyor Soligorsk are the current champions, after winning their second championship title in 2020.

Belarusian Premier League
Founded1992 (1992)
CountryBelarus
ConfederationUEFA
Number of teams16
Level on pyramid1
Relegation toBelarusian First League
Domestic cup(s)Belarusian Cup
Belarusian Super Cup
International cup(s)UEFA Champions League
UEFA Europa League
UEFA Europa Conference League
Current championsShakhtyor Soligorsk (2nd title)
(2020)
Most championshipsBATE Borisov (15 titles)
TV partnersBelarus 5
Websitehttps://abff.by/en/
Current: 2021 Belarusian Premier League

History

The Belarusian Premier League was organized in 1992. The first participants were: Dinamo Minsk, the only Belarusian side in the former Soviet Top League, five teams from the lower tiers of the Soviet league system, and ten teams who were previous competitors in the Belarusian SSR First League.

After the league creation, it was decided to change its schedule from a Soviet-style summer season to a European-style winter season. To perform the transition, the first season was shortened, consisting of a single round-robin tournament between 16 teams, finishing in mid-summer. Due to the shortened season, no team was relegated from the Premier League and only one was promoted from the First League. The 1992–93 season had 17 teams, but was reduced back to 16 teams for the following season. In 1995, the winter season experiment was proven unsuccessful due to poor weather and field conditions in Belarus in the late autumn and early spring. The season was changed back to summer, and the 1995 championship was once again held as a single round-robin tournament. Every season since 1996 has been played in the summer.

Throughout the 2000s, the number of competing teams has changed several times. In 2001, the league was reduced to 14 teams, but expanded back to 16 in 2003. In 2005, after two teams withdrew before the start of the season, the league was once again reduced to 14 clubs, but expanded again to 16 teams in 2008. That same year, the decision was made to gradually reduce the number of teams even more, starting with 14 teams in 2009 and 12 in 2010 onwards. 2012 season was played with only 11 teams due to last minute withdrawal of Partizan Minsk.

In its earliest years, the league was dominated by Dinamo Minsk, who won the league five times in a row between 1992 and 1995. During the next ten seasons, seven different teams finished as champions: Slavia Mozyr (1996 as MPKC Mozyr, 2000), Dinamo Minsk (1997, 2004), Dnepr-Transmash Mogilev (1998), BATE Borisov (1999, 2002), Belshina Bobruisk (2001), Gomel (2003), Shakhtyor Soligorsk (2005). Since 2006, BATE Borisov has dominated the league, winning 13 championships in a row (2006–2018), and becoming the first Belarusian team to reach the group stage of the UEFA Champions League (2008) and the UEFA Europa League (2009) (feats that they have achieved repeatedly in the following years).

In March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all the other football leagues in Europe were postponed, and by the end of the month, the Belarusian Premier League was the only top-flight league in the continent that was still playing.[1] Due to this, the league gained substantially increased viewership from abroad, with fans from all over the world watching the games online, due to the league being the only significant professional football available; the league signed new television rights deals with networks from countries including Russia and India.[2][3] British betting companies also offered odds for the various matches, as the league's profile, previously relatively unknown outside of the country, grew a larger audience due to sporting inactivity elsewhere.[4][5]

Premier League in 2021

Team Location Venue Capacity Position in 2020
BATE Borisov Borisov Arena 12,896 2nd
Dinamo Brest Brest OSK Brestskiy 10,060 4th
Dinamo Minsk Minsk Dinamo Stadium 22,000 6th
Energetik-BGU Minsk RCOP-BGU Stadium 1,500 10th
Gomel Gomel Central Stadium 14,307 2nd (First League)
Gorodeya Gorodeya Gorodeya Stadium 1,625 13th
Isloch Minsk Raion FC Minsk Stadium 3,000 7th
Minsk Minsk FC Minsk Stadium 3,000 11th
Neman Grodno Neman Stadium 8,500 5th
Rukh Brest Yunost Stadium 2,310 8th
Shakhtyor Soligorsk Stroitel Stadium 4,200 1st
Slavia Mozyr Yunost Stadium 5,300 9th
Slutsk Slutsk City Stadium 1,896 14th
Sputnik Rechitsa Central Stadium 3,550 1st (First League)
Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino Torpedo Stadium 3,020 3rd
Vitebsk Vitebsk Vitebsky CSK 8,100 12th
Locations of teams in the 2021 Belarusian Premier League

Soviet era champions

Champions and top scorers

Season Champion Runner-up Third place Top scorer
1992
Dinamo Minsk (1) Dnepr Mogilev Dinamo Brest Andrey Skorobogatko (Dnepr Mogilev) (11)
1992–93
Dinamo Minsk (2) KIM Vitebsk Belarus Minsk Sergey Baranovsky (Dinamo Minsk) (19)
Miroslav Romaschenko (Vedrich Rechitsa / Dnepr Mogilev) (19)
1993–94
Dinamo Minsk (3) Dinamo-93 Minsk KIM Vitebsk Pyotr Kachuro (Dinamo-93 Minsk / Dinamo Minsk) (21)
1994–95
Dinamo Minsk (4) Dvina Vitebsk Dinamo-93 Minsk Pavel Shavrov (Dinamo-93 Minsk) (19)
1995
Dinamo Minsk (5) MPKC Mozyr Dinamo-93 Minsk Sergey Yaromko (MPKC Mozyr) (16)
1996
MPKC Mozyr (1) Dinamo Minsk Belshina Bobruisk Andrey Khlebasolaw (Belshina Bobruisk) (34)
1997
Dinamo Minsk (6) Belshina Bobruisk Lokomotiv-96 Vitebsk Andrey Khlebasolaw (Belshina Bobruisk) (19)
1998
Dnepr-Transmash Mogilev (1) BATE Borisov Belshina Bobruisk Sergey Yaromko (Torpedo Minsk) (19)
1999
BATE Borisov (1) Slavia Mozyr Gomel Valery Strypeykis (Slavia Mozyr) (21)
2000
Slavia Mozyr (2) BATE Borisov Dinamo Minsk Raman Vasilyuk (Slavia Mozyr) (31)
2001
Belshina Bobruisk (1) Dinamo Minsk BATE Borisov Sergei Davydov (Neman-Belcard Grodno) (25)
2002
BATE Borisov (2) Neman Grodno Shakhtyor Soligorsk Valery Strypeykis (Belshina Bobruisk) (18)
2003
Gomel (1) BATE Borisov Dinamo Minsk Gennadi Bliznyuk (Gomel) (18)
Sergei Kornilenko (Dinamo Minsk) (18)
2004
Dinamo Minsk (7) BATE Borisov Shakhtyor Soligorsk Valery Strypeykis (Naftan Novopolotsk) (18)
2005
Shakhtyor Soligorsk (1) Dinamo Minsk MTZ-RIPO Minsk Valery Strypeykis (Naftan Novopolotsk) (16)
2006
BATE Borisov (3) Dinamo Minsk Shakhtyor Soligorsk Alyaksandr Klimenka (Shakhtyor Soligorsk) (17)
2007
BATE Borisov (4) Gomel Shakhtyor Soligorsk Raman Vasilyuk (Gomel) (24)
2008
BATE Borisov (5) Dinamo Minsk MTZ-RIPO Minsk Gennadi Bliznyuk (BATE Borisov) (16)
Vitali Rodionov (BATE Borisov) (16)
2009
BATE Borisov (6) Dinamo Minsk Dnepr Mogilev Maycon (Gomel) (15)
2010
BATE Borisov (7) Shakhtyor Soligorsk Minsk Renan Bressan (BATE Borisov) (15)
2011
BATE Borisov (8) Shakhtyor Soligorsk Gomel Renan Bressan (BATE Borisov) (13)
2012
BATE Borisov (9) Shakhtyor Soligorsk Dinamo Minsk Dzmitry Asipenka (Shakhtyor Soligorsk) (14)
2013
BATE Borisov (10) Shakhtyor Soligorsk Dinamo Minsk Vitali Rodionov (BATE Borisov) (14)
2014
BATE Borisov (11) Dinamo Minsk Shakhtyor Soligorsk Mikalay Yanush (Shakhtyor Soligorsk) (15)
2015
BATE Borisov (12) Dinamo Minsk Shakhtyor Soligorsk Mikalay Yanush (Shakhtyor Soligorsk) (15)
2016
BATE Borisov (13) Shakhtyor Soligorsk Dinamo Minsk Vitali Rodionov (BATE Borisov) (16)
Mikhail Gordeichuk (BATE Borisov) (16)
2017
BATE Borisov (14) Dinamo Minsk Shakhtyor Soligorsk Mikhail Gordeichuk (BATE Borisov) (18)
2018
BATE Borisov (15) Shakhtyor Soligorsk Dinamo Minsk Pavel Savitski (Dinamo Brest) (15)
2019
Dynamo Brest (1) BATE Borisov Shakhtyor Soligorsk Ilya Shkurin (Energetik-BGU Minsk) (19)
2020
Shakhtyor Soligorsk (2) BATE Borisov Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino Maksim Skavysh (BATE Borisov) (19)

Performances

Performance by club

Teams Champion Runner-up Third place
BATE Borisov 15 (1999, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018) 6 (1998, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2019, 2020) 1 (2001)
Dinamo Minsk 7 (1992, 1992–93, 1993–94, 1994–95, 1995, 1997, 2004) 9 (1996, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2014, 2015, 2017) 6 (2000, 2003, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2018)
Shakhtyor Soligorsk 2 (2005, 2020) 6 (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2018) 8 (2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019)
Slavia Mozyr 2 (1996, 2000) 2 (1995, 1999)
Gomel 1 (2003) 1 (2007) 2 (1999, 2011)
Belshina Bobruisk 1 (2001) 1 (1997) 2 (1996, 1998)
Dnepr Mogilev 1 (1998) 1 (1992) 1 (2009)
Dynamo Brest 1 (2019) 1 (1992)
Vitebsk 2 (1992–93, 1994–95) 2 (1993–94, 1997)
Dinamo-93 Minsk 1 (1993–94) 3 (1992–93, 1994–95, 1995)
Neman Grodno 1 (2002)
Partizan Minsk 2 (2005, 2008)
Minsk 1 (2010)
Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino 1 (2020)

All-time table

As of end of 2019 season.
Rank Club1 Seasons Debut Last
Season
Pld2 W D L Goals Points3 Best Result
1Dinamo Minsk 2919928224881791551489–70316431st (1992, 1992–93, 1993–94, 1994–95, 1995, 1997, 2004)
2BATE Borisov 221998641431126841270–48614191st (1999, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)
3Shakhtyor Soligorsk 2919928223942012291192–82513731st (2005)
4Neman Grodno 291992823297213313907–99211042nd (2002)
5Dinamo Brest 2919928222952003271025–107010851st (2019)
6Dnepr Mogilev 2519922018707261176260913–8899591st (1998)
7Vitebsk 241992672251169252767–8159222nd (1992–93, 1994–95)
8Gomel 2419922019652251144257808–8218971st (2003)
9Belshina Bobruisk 201993–94578219128231784–7707851st (2001)
10Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino 201992572212145215664–6597814th (2004, 2005, 2007, 2014)
11Naftan Novopolotsk 2119962017615190131294716–9456964th (2009)
12Slavia Mozyr 171995479179112198672–7036191st (1996, 2000)
13Torpedo Minsk 1519922019428158115155481–4755894th (2002, 2003)
14Minsk 12200735712390143424–4314603rd (2010)
15Dinamo-93 Minsk 71992–931998181994339296–1573402nd (1993–94)
16Molodechno-2000 12199220033238080163339–4903204th (1994–95)
17Partizan Minsk 720042010198804276288–2812823rd (2005, 2008)
18Torpedo-Kadino Mogilev 10199220002716476131266–4442687th (1992)
19Slutsk 62014177544479156–2142067th (2017)
20Vedrich-97 Rechitsa 8199220012084644118167–3271828th (1992)
21Darida Minsk Raion 620032008168443886165–2521708th (2006)
22Bobruisk 519921995122443444119–1451664th (1992)
23Lida 719922000182384698144–2891608th (1994–95)
24Isloch Minsk Raion 42016119412949119–1581525th (2019)
25Gorodeya 42016119364340132–1361517th (2019)
26Granit Mikashevichi 420082016112313546112–1611285th (2015)
27Energetik-BGU Minsk 52002141283281155–29411612th (2002, 2003, 2019)
28Ataka Minsk 3199519977529163086–931034th (1995)
29Lokomotiv Minsk 420032008112232564100–1879411th (2005)
30Lokomotiv Vitebsk 419921994–9510722275882–1819310th (1993–94)
31Smorgon 3200720098218263858–114808th (2008)
32Kommunalnik Slonim 3199720008915175766–1916211th (1997)
33Stroitel Starye Dorogi 319921993–947714184548–1176014th (1992, 1992–93)
34Krumkachy Minsk 2201620176014163050–865811th (2016)
35Transmash Mogilev 11997199730841830–522814th (1997)
36Dnyapro Mogilev 12019201929761629–422514th (2019)
37Luch Minsk 120182018304121424–442413th (2018)
38Smolevichi 1201830591621–392415th (2018)
39Savit Mogilev 12008200830561928–612115th (2008)
40Svisloch-Krovlya Osipovichi 11999199930442224–741615th (1999)
41Rukh Brest 0202000000–00TBD
  1. For clubs that have been renamed, their name at the time of their most recent season in the Premier League is given. The current members are listed in bold.
  2. Includes 2002 championship play-off, 2004 relegation play-off, 14 games of Dinamo-93 in 1998 season, and 15 games of Torpedo Minsk in 2019 season.
  3. For the purposes of this table, each win is worth 3 points. The three-points system was adopted in fall 1995 season.

Player of the year

Belarusian Premier League Player of the year is an annual award given by a sports newspaper Pressball.

Season Player Club
1992
Valyantsin Byalkevich Dinamo Minsk
1992–93
Sergey Gotsmanov Dinamo Minsk
1993–94
Yury Shukanov Dinamo Minsk
1994–95
Valyantsin Byalkevich Dinamo Minsk
1995
Valyantsin Byalkevich Dinamo Minsk
1996
Alyaksandr Kulchy MPKC Mozyr
1997
Andrei Lavrik Dinamo Minsk
1998
Aleh Konanaw Torpedo Minsk
1999
Dmitri Karsakov Slavia Mozyr
2000
Aleksandr Lisovskiy BATE Borisov
2001
Vitali Kutuzov BATE Borisov
2002
Dzmitry Likhtarovich BATE Borisov
2003
Timofei Kalachev Shakhtyor Soligorsk
2004
Andrey Razin Dinamo Minsk
2005
Vital Valadzyankow Dinamo Minsk
2006
Oleg Strakhanovich MTZ-RIPO Minsk
2007
Raman Vasilyuk Gomel
2008
Vitali Rodionov BATE Borisov
2009
Sergey Krivets BATE Borisov
2010
Renan Bressan BATE Borisov
2011
Renan Bressan BATE Borisov
2012
Stanislaw Drahun Dinamo Minsk
2013
Alexander Hleb BATE Borisov
2014
Ihar Stasevich Dinamo Minsk
2015
Ihar Stasevich BATE Borisov
2016
Ihar Stasevich BATE Borisov
2017
Mikhail Gordeichuk BATE Borisov
2018
Ihar Stasevich BATE Borisov
2019
Ihar Stasevich BATE Borisov

Reserves League

An annual league competition is organized for the reserve teams of Premier League clubs since 2001. This tournament was won by the reserves of Dinamo Minsk (9 titles), Gomel (2 titles), Shakhtyor Soligorsk (2 titles), BATE Borisov (1 title), Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino (1 title) and Dnepr Mogilev (1 title).

Notes

  1. a team of the Belarusian Military District
  2. a team of the Home of the Red Army (Home of the Red Army is a special organization and used to include sports section preceding the Army Sports Club (SKA))

References

  1. Smith, Rory (24 March 2020). "All Alone, Belarus Plays On". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 24 August 2020. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  2. "Coronavirus: Belarus Premier League attracts global attention as it plays on". BBC News. 29 March 2020. Archived from the original on 24 August 2020. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  3. "Last league standing: Belarusian football basks in new-found popularity". The Guardian. 29 March 2020. Archived from the original on 24 August 2020. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  4. Pettigrove, Jason (3 April 2020). "Belarusian Premier League: Betting tips, predictions and teams to watch". Betfair. Archived from the original on 27 August 2020. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
  5. McMahon, Alex (9 April 2020). "Belarusian Premier League Betting: Tips, News & Belarus Football Guide". 888sport. Archived from the original on 27 August 2020. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
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