The Süper Lig

The Süper Lig is contested by 18 clubs each season. Every club plays the other 17 twice — once at home, once away — for 34 matches in total. Three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw, and none for a defeat. The team finishing top of the table at the end of the season are crowned Turkish champions. The bottom three clubs are relegated to the TFF 1. Lig, the second tier, and replaced by three promoted clubs from that division.

The league has been held continuously since 1959, when it was launched as the Millî Lig (National League) — Turkey's first nationwide professional competition. It was renamed the 1. Lig in 1963, and was rebranded as the Süper Lig in 2001 when a new second-tier 1. Lig was created. The competition is run by the Turkish Football Federation. The Süper Lig often sits around the edge of UEFA's top 10 country coefficient table.

The season runs from mid-August to late May, with a winter break of around three weeks across late December and early January. Matches are played Friday through Monday, with most fixtures on weekends and selected Monday-evening games for television. Tiebreakers for clubs level on points are, in order, head-to-head matches between the tied clubs, then head-to-head goal difference, then overall goal difference, then goals scored — the same head-to-head-first rule used in La Liga and Serie A.

Three clubs are promoted from the TFF 1. Lig each year — the top two automatically, with a third through a play-off. Three clubs are relegated from the Süper Lig with no play-offs. From 2025-26, the league returned to an 18-club, three-up, three-down structure. Unlike leagues that use relegation play-offs, the bottom-three clubs go down directly.

The Süper Lig champions qualify directly for the Champions League league phase, while the runners-up enter the Champions League qualifying rounds. The Turkish Cup winners normally receive a Europa League place, while further league places can lead into Europa League or Conference League qualifying depending on Turkey's UEFA access-list position and whether the cup winners have already qualified through the league. Exact access routes can change from season to season.

The Süper Lig made a major breakthrough in European football across the late 1990s and 2000s, with Galatasaray winning the 1999-2000 UEFA Cup and the 2000 UEFA Super Cup — becoming the first Turkish club to win a major European trophy. Galatasaray had also reached the European Cup semi-finals in 1988-89, before the Champions League era. Turkish clubs have continued to compete deep into European competitions across the modern era, although none have matched Galatasaray's 2000 UEFA Cup win.

Turkish football's pre-Süper Lig history was a series of regional leagues in Istanbul, Ankara, and İzmir, plus several short-lived national competitions. The Turkish Football Championship ran from 1924 to 1951 as a knockout tournament between regional winners. The Millî Küme ran from 1937 to 1950 as a national league for the top Istanbul, Ankara, and İzmir clubs. The Federation Cup in 1956-57 and 1957-58 was a short-lived national competition used to determine Turkey's European Cup representative before the nationwide league began.

The Süper Lig was launched in 1959 as the Millî Lig, with 16 founding clubs drawn from the regional leagues. Fenerbahçe won the inaugural title. The league grew across the following decades, with Trabzonspor breaking the Istanbul Big Three's dominance in the late 1970s, Bursaspor's surprise 2010 title, and Başakşehir's 2020 title. The modern era has also included periodic disputes over governance, refereeing and league administration, alongside the continued dominance of the country's leading clubs.