Liga I

The first official national football tournament was organized in 1909 by the recently founded Romanian Football Federation, then called the Association of Athletic Societies in Romania (Romanian: Asociațiunea Societăților Atletice din România). The final matches of the first Romanian Football Championship were held between December 1909 and January 1910 in Bucharest.[3][4] The three pioneer clubs were Olympia and Colentina from Bucharest and United from Ploiești. Each team played a fixture against the other two clubs, totalizing a number of three matches disputed, with Olympia București being crowned as champions of the first Romanian Football Championship.[3][5] In the following years, the tournament was structured into regional groups with the winners of each group participating in a playoff with the eventual winners being declared champions. From 1909 until 1921, the championship was organized as a cup with the winner being crowned as Champions of Romania,[3][5] except for between 1916–1919, when the competition was suspended due to World War I.[6] The champions of this period were Olympia, Colentina and Venus, each with two titles, and United, Prahova and Româno-Americana, with one title each.[3][5]

Olympia București, the 1909 champions.

The 1921–22 season marked the first time when a league consisting of seven teams was formed. The championship, which had been confined to several regional leagues, became a national competition in 1921 with the foundation of Divizia A and Divizia B. The inaugural Divizia A season was won by Chinezul Timișoara.[7] Before the 1931–32 season, the competition was dominated by Chinezul and Venus București, with Chinezul winning six championships and Venus two championships during the eleven seasons.[3][7] The 1932–33 season saw the rise of another successful team, Ripensia Timișoara, which alongside rivals Venus, won eight of the following nine championships, before the competition was suspended in 1940 due to World War II.[3][7]

The post-war years were dominated by CCA București, UTA Arad and Petrolul Ploiești. The 1960s saw the gradual emergence of Dinamo București, with the help from strikers Gheorghe Ene and Florea Dumitrache—both of whom became some of Divizia A's top all-time scorers. The 1970s saw the rise of Dudu Georgescu, from Dinamo București, who was Divizia A's leading scorer for four seasons between 1974 and 1978. He scored an impressive 156 goals and won the European Golden Shoe award for the top scorer in Europe twice, in 1975 and 1977.[8][9] Dinamo București also had two more European Golden Shoe winners in the 1986–87 season in the name of Rodion Cămătaru and in the 1988–89 season in the name of Dorin Mateuţ, with the latter being the last Romanian winner of the trophy.[8] From the 1959–60 season all the way to the 1999–2000 season all the league championships were won by only seven teams: Steaua (16 titles), Dinamo (14 titles), Universitatea Craiova (4 titles), Rapid București, FC Argeș and UTA Arad (2 titles each), and Petrolul Ploiești (one title).[3]

Dinamo București was the first Romanian team to qualify into the European Champions Cup in the 1956–57 season of the competition and Universitatea Craiova was the last team from Romania to qualify in the 1991–92 season, before the competition changed its name to the UEFA Champions League. Romanian teams qualified to 35 of the 37 seasons of the European Champions Cup, with Dinamo București having thirteen appearances, Steaua București having ten appearances, Universitatea Craiova having four appearances, Petrolul having three appearances, UTA Arad and FC Argeş having two appearances and Rapid București having one appearance. The most important results for a Romanian team in this competition were achieved by Steaua București which won the trophy in the 1985–86 season, and reached the semi-finals in the 1987–88 season and another final in the 1988–89 season.[4] Other important achievements include Universitatea Craiova which reached the quarter-finals in the 1981–82 season and Dinamo București which reached the semi-finals in the 1983–84 season.[10][11] However, after the change of the format in 1992–93 to the current Champions League format, Romanian champions have achieved limited successes, with Steaua only reaching the group stage three times before the 21st century.

The beginning of the 2000s were dominated by teams from the capital, with Steaua, Dinamo and Rapid winning all the league titles between 2000 and 2007.[3]

CFR Cluj won six championships in the new format of the Liga I.

At the beginning of the 2006–07 season the competition was forced to change its name from Divizia A to Liga I due to a trademark dispute over the name.[2] The change was made on 15 May 2006, and the Romanian Football Federation decided to also rename the lower leagues; thus Divizia B became Liga II, Divizia C became Liga III, and so on.[2] The 2006–07 season marked the 16th straight time a team from Bucharest won the championship, with Dinamo winning the title. Both 2007–08 and 2008–09 saw new title winners as CFR Cluj and Unirea Urziceni were crowned champions for the first time.[3] CFR Cluj won their second championship in 2009–10, while the 2010–11 saw another new winner, Oțelul Galați. Oțelul is the first and only club from the region of Moldavia to win a national title.

CFR Cluj, the 2007–08 winner became the first Romanian team to qualify directly into the 2008–09 group stage of the UEFA Champions League, and the first team other than Steaua to qualify to this stage since the beginning of the new Champions League format in 1992–93.[12] The 2009–10 champions as well as 2010–11 ones were guaranteed a direct qualification spot into the group stage as well.[13] The best results in the group stage was obtained by CFR Cluj in the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League with ten points and third place in a group with Manchester United, Braga, and Galatasaray.

The 2010s also brought new league winners in Liga I, with Astra Giurgiu and Viitorul Constanța clinching the titles in 2015-16 and 2016-17 respectively.[14]

Bold indicates clubs currently playing in 2020–21 Liga I. Teams in italics no longer exist. Teams in neither bold or italics are existing past winners of the championship that play in Romania's lower leagues.

Club	Wins	Winning years
FCSB[note 1]	26	1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1959–60, 1960–61, 1967–68, 1975–76, 1977–78, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1988–89, 1992–93, 1993–94, 1994–95, 1995–96, 1996–97, 1997–98, 2000–01, 2004–05, 2005–06, 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15
Dinamo București	18	1955, 1961–62, 1962–63, 1963–64, 1964–65, 1970–71, 1972–73, 1974–75, 1976–77, 1981–82, 1982–83, 1983–84, 1989–90, 1991–92, 1999–00, 2001–02, 2003–04, 2006–07
Venus București	8	1919–20, 1920–21, 1928–29, 1931–32, 1933–34, 1936–37, 1938–39, 1939–40
UTA Arad	6	1946–47, 1947–48, 1950, 1954, 1968–69, 1969–70
Chinezul Timișoara	6	1921–22, 1922–23, 1923–24, 1924–25, 1925–26, 1926–27
CFR Cluj	6	2007–08, 2009–10, 2011–12, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20
Universitatea Craiova	4	1973–74, 1979–80, 1980–81, 1990–91
Petrolul Ploiești	4	1929–30, 1957–58, 1958–59, 1965–66
Ripensia Timișoara	4	1932–33, 1934–35, 1935–36, 1937–38
Rapid București	3	1966–67, 1998–99, 2002–03
Argeș Pitești	2	1971–72, 1978–79
Prahova Ploiești	2	1911–12, 1915–16
Colentina București	2	1912–13, 1913–14
Olympia București	2	1909–10, 1910–11
Viitorul Constanța	1	2016–17
Astra Giurgiu	1	2015–16
Oțelul Galați	1	2010–11
Unirea Urziceni	1	2008–09
Club Atletic Oradea	1	1948–49
Unirea Tricolor București	1	1940–41
CSM Reșița	1	1930–31
Colțea Brașov	1	1927–28
Româno-Americană București	1	1914–15

The following 16 clubs are competing in the Liga I during the 2020–21 season.