Your guide to the Primera Divison (La Liga)

The Primera Division (La Liga)

Image taken from Wikipedia (2017) 

The La Liga was formed in April 1927 and is Spain's (men's) professional football (soccer) league. Similar to the EPL, the La Liga is made up of 20 clubs; these clubs change every year through a system of promotion and relegation with the Segunda Division (2nd div). This is slightly different to the EPL; [in the La Liga] the bottom 3 teams are replaced by the two top teams [of Segunda div] and the winner of a play-off between the third, fourth, fifth and six placed teams [of Segunda div]. Like the EPL, the fixtures for the season see each club play 38 matches, where they play each club twice (once at home and once away). Teams receive 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. Furthermore, teams are ranked by total points, with the highest-ranked club at the end of the season crowned the champion of the league. A total of 60 clubs have competed in La Liga since its formation in 1927, however, the division has been dominated by Real Madrid, who have won the title 33 times and Barcelona, 24 times. Athletic Bilbao have won the title 7 times, however these wins were in the league's early years. The current (2016/17) champions are Real Madrid.

Image taken from Mirror.co.uk (2016) 

Similar to the EPL (with English teams), the La Liga only features teams from Spain. However, the league is extremely popular across the world, in particular within Europe. This is because the league features some of the most famous and most talented players in the world. Some of these players include Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) and Lionel Messi (Barcelona) [pictured above]; Gareth Bale (Real Madrid), Neymar (Barcelona), Luis Suarez (Barcelona) and Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid). Furthermore, the La Liga attracts the best players from around the world with the biggest price tags. For instance (per week), Ramos earns £261,000; Suarez earns £272,000; Neymar earns £275,000; Bale earns £350,000; Messi and Ronaldo earn £365,000. In addition, Forbes (2017) have Barcelona (2nd overall sporting team) valued at $3.63 billion (US) and Real Madrid (3rd overall sporting team) valued at $3.58 billion (US), both earning a revenue of $688 million annually- making the La Liga one of the richest sporting leagues in the world.

The 2017/18 season began on Sat 19 August 2017 with Leganes taking on Alaves at Estadio Municipal de Butarque (Leganes home) where they won 1-0.

Nicholas Kemmler
02/10/2017

References:
1. Forbes, 2017. The World's Most Valuable Soccer Teams 2017. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2017/06/06/the-worlds-most-valuable-soccer-teams-2017/. (Accessed 03 October 2017).
2. La Liga, 2017. La Liga. Available at: http://www.laliga.es/en. (Accessed 03 October 2017);
3. Soccerath, 2017. Highest Paid La Liga Players: Ronaldo and Messi top the list. Available at: https://www.soccerath.com/2017/03/21/highest-paid-la-liga-players/. (Accessed 03 October 2017);
4. Wikipedia, 2017. La Liga. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/la_liga. (Accessed 03 October 2017).

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