Competition
Teams in the Russian Premier League play each other twice, once at home and once away, for a total of 30 matches. Three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss. If teams are level on points, the tie-breakers are the number of wins, then the goal difference, followed by several other factors. If the teams are tied for the first position, the tie-breakers are the number of wins, then head-to-head results. If the teams tied for the first place cannot be separated by these tie-breakers, a championship play-off is ordered.
As of 2010, the champions and the runners-up qualify for the UEFA Champions League group stage. The third-placed team qualifies for the Champions League second qualifying round. The fourth- and fifth-place teams qualify for the UEFA Europa League. The bottom two teams are relegated to the First Division (renamed the National League Championship starting in 2011).
Unlike most other European football leagues, the league traditionally ran in summer, from March to November, to avoid playing games in the cold and snowy weather in winter. This will be altered ahead of the 2012/13 season, with the league planning to run the season from autumn to spring. The transitional season of the competition began in early 2011 and will continue until summer of 2012. After the 16 Premier League teams have played each other twice over the course of the year 2011, they will be split into two groups of eight, and the teams will play other teams in their groups two more times for a total of 44 games (30 in 2011 and 14 in 2012). Those two groups will be contested in spring 2012, with the top eight clubs playing for the title and European places. The other sides will vie to avoid relegation: the bottom two will go down while the next two play-off against the sides third and fourth in the National League Championship, with the two losers being relegated (or denied promotion).
Read more about this topic: Russian Premier League
Famous quotes containing the word competition:
“Playing games with agreed upon rules helps children learn to live by rules, establish the delicate balance between competition and cooperation, between fair play and justice and exploitation and abuse of these for personal gain. It helps them learn to manage the warmth of winning and the hurt of losing; it helps them to believe that there will be another chance to win the next time.”
—James P. Comer (20th century)
“Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.”
—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)
“So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die.”
—William Morris (1834–1896)