Football League structure
The table below shows a combination of the National League and Top Amateur football leagues which follow FIFA law of the game according to the level of play.
Current System
National Leagues
Singapore Premier League
The Singapore Premier League, formerly known as the S.League is a professional football league organised by Football Association of Singapore. The league was formed in 1996, replacing the semi-professional FAS Premier League and became the nation top-tier league. The League is played by 9 professional football clubs based in Singapore whereby there are 3 rounds for each club to play against each other. Hence every club in the league will play a total of 24 games upon the completion of each season. Hence this will be a total of 108 matches and the season last from March to October. However it was postpone after starting a few matches in 2020 due to Coronavirus cases in Singapore. The origin of the SPL can be traced back to 1921 whereby a representative club of Singapore, known as the Singapore Lions took part in the Malaysia Cup and winning the title for 24 times. Eventually the FAS and the FAM went into a dispute which eventually lead the lions from withdrawing from an FAM sanctioned tournament. This then slowly lead to the formation of FAS premier league and eventually the S.League, now known as the Singapore Premier League. When the S.League was formed, there were 8 clubs which took part in the inaugural season. Geylang United won the first ever S.League title upon defeating the SAFFC in a stadium filled up 30,000 crowd which remains a record breaking number of attendance to this day.
Singapore Football League
The Singapore Football League (SFL), Formerly known as the National Football League is a top amateur football tournament founded in 1975. The league is contested by football clubs that are affiliated with the Football Association of Singapore. The SFL consists of 2 divisions, Division 1 and Division 2 with relegation and promotion apply between these divisions. The SFL, then known as the NFL used to consists of 3 divisions until 2014 when the NFL Division 3 was folded. The SFL Division 1 was a top-tier football league in Singapore since its inception in 1975, succeeding the Singapore Amateur Football Association 1st Division football league. The SFL Division 1 continues to be top domestic league of the nation until the introduction of the semi-professional tournament, FAS Premier League in 1988 which eventually folded in 1996 upon the introduction of the professional S.League, now known as the SPL. The domestic cup competition for the SFL clubs is the Singapore FA Cupwhereby the clubs compete with the IWL clubs in a knock-out format competition. The SFL also served as a path for amateur and semi professional football to get into a professional path and at the same time for professional player from S.League to continue playing football at a highly competitive level upon their professional contract expiration from the SPL.
Division 1
Division 2
Division 3
Singapore Island Wide League
The Singapore Island Wide League, IWL is a qualification tournament for clubs that are associated with the FAS to get into Singapore Football League, SFL the following year.