League of the Institutes (Arabic: دوري المؤسسات العراقي, Dawri Al-Muassasat) was the top-level division of football in Iraq before the creation of the Iraqi Premier League and contained the top 15 Iraqi football teams in its final season. It was founded in 1948 and was controlled by the Iraq Football Association which was founded in the same year. The league was never actually called the League of the Institutes; it gained this name in the years following its abolishing due to the fact that many of the teams were institute teams rather than football clubs.
It began its first season in 1948, but after its first edition, it was not held for a further seven years until it restarted in 1956. From 1956 to 1961, the league was played in a double-elimination format, but a round-robin system was introduced in 1961, followed by the introduction of a double round-robin format in 1965 which remained in place until the league folded in 1974. For the majority of its existence, only Baghdad-based teams were allowed to enter the competition, although it was still considered to be the national championship. The league was dominated by Al-Shorta, Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya and Amanat Baghdad who together won 15 of the 18 completed championships.
History
Al-Athori players with the 1959–60 Iraq FA Cup Championship trophy.
The tournament was founded under the name Iraq FA Championship and its first edition was in the 1948–49 season. Six teams from around the country were split into two groups, with the winners of the two groups facing each other in the final at Al-Kashafa Stadium in Baghdad. Sharikat Naft Al-Basra won the competition, beating Kuliya Al-Askariya 1–0 in the final. The tournament was put on hold for the next seven years before returning for the 1956–57 season as a double-elimination tournament called the Iraq FA Cup Championship, which was only open to teams from Baghdad. Teams who were knocked out early would be relegated to the lower division (which was also a double-elimination tournament).
In 1961, a round-robin system was introduced for the very first time, and two years later the competition was renamed to the Iraq FA League Championship. This name lasted for just two seasons, as the league was renamed the Iraq FA Premier League at the start of the 1965–66 season, the first season to feature a double round-robin format. The 1966–67 season was the only season that was not completed; it had to be abandoned due to the Six-Day War. The 1971–72 season saw the league's name change for the final time as it became known as the Iraq FA First Division (and thus the second-tier became known as the Iraq FA Second Division). For the 1973–74 season, the Iraq FA decided to allow teams from outside of Baghdad to enter the tournament for the first time since the 1948–49 season, as the league increased to 15 teams. This would be the last ever edition of the League of the Institutes, as on 18 August 1974, the Iraq FA decided to abolish the league and replace it with the Iraqi Premier League (then known as Iraqi National League), which was a league strictly for football clubs, meaning institute teams (including teams representing the army and police) would not be allowed to enter – they had to be football clubs.
The decision was met with strong opposition from the Police Games Directorate (PGD) and army sports authorities, as all the police-representative teams were merged to form Al-Shorta SC and all the army-representative teams were merged to form Al-Jaish SC. The PGD and army sports authorities decided to field weak teams for Al-Shorta's and Al-Jaish's opening matches in the new Iraqi Premier League, but the suffering of heavy losses combined with the stern refusal of the FA to bring back the League of the Institutes led to them eventually accepting the new league.[1]
Champions
List of champions
- Note: Al-Jaish, Al-Shorta and Amanat Baghdad have all been formed as mergers of multiple institute teams, therefore the name of the institute team that won the title in that particular season is shown in brackets.[2]
Most successful clubs
| # |
Club |
Winners |
Winning Years |
| 1 | Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya |
5 |
1957–58, 1961–62, 1963–64, 1972–73, 1973–74 |
| Al-Shorta |
1962–63, 1967–68, 1968–69, 1969–70, 1971–72 |
| Amanat Baghdad |
1956–57, 1958–59, 1960–61, 1964–65, 1970–71 |
| 4 | Al-Jaish |
1 |
1965–66 |
| Al-Athori |
1959–60 |
| Sharikat Naft Al-Basra |
1948–49 |
|
Winning managers
[3]
Only one team from the League of the Institutes era competed in a major continental competition, and that was 1969–70 champions Aliyat Al-Shorta (now Al-Shorta) who qualified for the 1971 edition of the AFC Champions League. They changed their name to Al-Shorta for the tournament. Al-Shorta managed to reach the final of the competition, winning all the matches they had played, but refused to face Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv in the final in protest at the Israeli occupation of Palestine, instead waving the Palestinian flag around the field. They were regarded as champions in the Iraqi media (the Al-Mal'ab newspaper headline the following day read: "The Champions of Asia Return to Baghdad") and were greeted with a heroes' reception upon their return to the country; they are now regarded by the vast majority of people in Asia as the winners, with the subsequent expulsion of Israel from the AFC.[4]
See also
References
External links
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| League system | |
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Iraq
