History of the SAS Ligaen
SAS Ligaen is the top professional football league in Denmark and is under the umbrella of the Danish Football Association. The SAS Ligaen is also known as the Danish Football Championship. The name SAS Ligaen comes from the current sponsor Scandinavian Airlines System. Till 1991 the Danish 1st Division was considered the top football league in Denmark. In the spring of 1991, it was decided that the Danish Superliga would be the top soccer league pushing its predecessor into second place.
Ten teams participated in the first edition of the tournament, playing each other twice across the soccer season. In 1991, it was decided that the football league would be played across a period of two years. In the first half of the tournament during the summer, the 10 soccer teams would face each other twice, and in the following spring, the two teams with least number of points would be relegated and the 8 teams would play each other twice after the number of points they gained is cut in half. The format was scrapped before the 1995-96 soccer season, as the number of football teams participating was increased to 12, and it was decided that each team would be playing the other teams thrice in a football season. From the start of the 2001-02 football season and to date, the Superliga is called SAS Ligaen. The winner of SAS Ligaen qualifies for the next season’s Champion League 2nd qualifying round. The runner up of SAS Ligaen and the winner of the Danish Cup get a chance to play UEFA Europa League football the following season. The bottom two teams get relegated to the Danish 1st Division. F.C. Copenhagen has won the most number of SAS Ligaen titles with 7.
Previous SAS Ligaen season(s)
SAS Ligaen in 2008-09 was exciting to say the least, as F.C. Copenhagen claimed top honours for the seventh time. OB and Brøndby IF made it to the third qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League next season. Both the teams tried their level best to thwart F.C. Copenhagen’s chances of winning, but riding favourable odds they went onto win. The odds favoured defending champions Aalborg BK to do well, but they finished a disappointing seventh. Vejle BK and AC Horsens were the teams relegated to the Danish 1st Division. Two Danish players Morten Nordstrand of F.C. Copenhagen and Marc Nygaard of Randers FC finished the soccer season as SAS Ligaen’s top goal scorers.
