New-Zealand Football Championship
Badge
Poster
Established
2004 (21 years old)
First Recorded Event
2019-11-02
Current Season
2020-2021
Current Round
Level Above
Level Below
New Zealand Northern League
Sport
SoccerLocation
New Zealand
Gender
Male
TV Rights
21 Mar 
Description
The New Zealand Football Championship is a professional men's association football league at the top of the New Zealand league system. Founded in 2004, the New Zealand Football Championship was the successor to a myriad of short-lived football leagues in the country, including the National Soccer League, the National Summer Soccer League and the New Zealand Superclub League. The league is currently contested by ten teams in a franchise system. For sponsorship reasons, the competition is known as the ISPS Handa Premiership.
Seasons run from October through to April, and consist of an eighteen-round regular season followed by a playoff series involving the four highest-placed teams, culminating in a Grand Final. Each season, two clubs gain qualification to the OFC Champions League, the continental competition for the Oceania region. The league does not use a system of promotion and relegation, unlike most other world leagues.
Auckland City are the most successful side since the competition's inception, with seven titles. A youth competition, called the National Youth League, runs parallel to the regular season from October to December – the most recent champions are also Auckland City.
Seasons
 2020-2021 | 2019-2020 |  | |
Teams
  Canterbury Unit  |  Hawkes Bay Unit |  Team Wellington |  Waitakere Unite | ||||
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Other Links
 Website |