Iraqi Premier League

Iraqi Premier League (Arabic: دوري النخبة العراقي, Dawri Al-Nokhba) is the highest league in the league system of Iraqi football and currently contains the top 29 Iraqi football clubs. It is translated into English as "The Premier League". It was founded in 1974 and is controlled by the Iraq Football Federation.

League of the Institutes
Prior to 1974, the league contained only Baghdad based teams. The league was named League of the Institutes and began its first season in 1962. During its 11 years, the Baghdad league was dominated by the Al-Shorta club as it won over half of the championships.

Group A (North)

 * Al-Jaish
 * Al-Kahrabaa
 * Al-Karkh
 * Al-Naft
 * Al-Shorta
 * Al-Sinaa
 * Arbil FC
 * Diyala FC
 * Dohuk FC
 * Mosul FC
 * Peshmarga FC
 * Ramadi FC
 * Samarra FC
 * Zakho FC

Group B (South)

 * Al-Diwaniya FC
 * Al-Hassanin
 * Al-Hindiya FC
 * Al-Masafi FC
 * Al-Minaa
 * Al-Najaf FC
 * Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya
 * Al-Talaba
 * Al-Zawraa
 * Baghdad FC
 * Karbalaa FC
 * Naft Al-Janoob
 * Naft Maysan
 * Nasiriya FC

Current competition
Since the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime, the Iraqi league has made some dramatic changes. The league now starts in October and ends in July. Unlike the upper division of most countries' football leagues, Iraq's first league are split into 3 groups as planned in the beginning of the season. But by February 15, 2007, the league split the Baghdad group into two groups since teams could not coordinate games due to violence in the capital. In the first postwar year, the league split 28 teams into 4 groups of seven, based on region: North, South, and 2 Baghdad groups. In the 2006 - 2007 season, the league shrunk to 4 groups with a total of 23 teams.

The top 4 teams from each group moves on to the next round, while the last team of each group is relegated to the Iraq's 2nd division league (in the 2004-05 season, each group was forced to relegate 3 teams because the league had too many teams (35)). The 12 advancing teams are then split into 4 groups of 3, where each team plays the other twice, once home and once away. The first team in each of the 4 groups advances to the next round (the semi-finals.) Each of the 4 remaining teams is then paired with another team, where they will play a home and away match. The 2 winners advance to the championship for a single Baghdad venue match, while the two losing teams play for 3rd place.

The two finalist teams also advance to play in the AFC Cup, while the third place team qualifies to the Arab Champions League.