Belarusian Premier League


The Belarusian Premier League or the Vyšejšaja Liha or the Vysheyshaya Liga is the top division of professional football in Belarus, and is organized by the Belarusian Football Federation. The number of teams in the competition has varied over the years from as high as 17 to as low as 11. As of 2016, the league includes 16 teams. Each team plays every other team twice during the course of the season. At the end of the season, the two teams with the fewest points are automatically relegated to the Belarusian First League, while the third worst team plays a promotion-relegation playoff against the third best team from the second tier. The top two teams from the Belarusian First League automatically win promotion to the Premier League. Dinamo Brest are the current champions, after winning their first championship title in 2019.

History

The Belarusian Premier League was organized in 1992. The first participants were: Dinamo Minsk, the only Belarusian side in the former Soviet Top League, five teams from the lower tiers of the Soviet league system, and ten teams who were previous competitors in the Belarusian SSR First League.
After the league creation, it was decided to change its schedule from a Soviet-style summer season to a European-style winter season. To perform the transition, the first season was shortened, consisting of a single round-robin tournament between 16 teams, finishing in mid-summer. Due to the shortened season, no team was relegated from the Premier League and only one was promoted from the First League. The 1992–93 season had 17 teams, but was reduced back to 16 teams for the following season. In 1995, the winter season experiment was proven unsuccessful due to poor weather and field conditions in Belarus in the late autumn and early spring. The season was changed back to summer, and the 1995 championship was once again held as a single round-robin tournament. Every season since 1996 has been played in the summer.
Throughout the 2000s, the number of competing teams has changed several times. In 2001, the league was reduced to 14 teams, but expanded back to 16 in 2003. In 2005, after two teams withdrew before the start of the season, the league was once again reduced to 14 clubs, but expanded again to 16 teams in 2008. That same year, the decision was made to gradually reduce the number of teams even more, starting with 14 teams in 2009 and 12 in 2010 onwards. 2012 season was played with only 11 teams due to last minute withdrawal of Partizan Minsk.
In its earliest years, the league was dominated by Dinamo Minsk, who won the league five times in a row between 1992 and 1995. During the next ten seasons, seven different teams finished as champions: Slavia Mozyr, Dinamo Minsk, Dnepr-Transmash Mogilev, BATE Borisov, Belshina Bobruisk, Gomel, Shakhtyor Soligorsk. Since 2006, BATE Borisov has dominated the league, winning 13 championships in a row, and becoming the first Belarusian team to reach the group stage of the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League .
In March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all the other football leagues in Europe were postponed, and by the end of the month, the Belarusian Premier League was the only top flight league in the continent that was still playing. Due to this, the league gained substantially increased viewership from abroad, with fans from all over the world watching the games online, due to the league being the only significant professional football available. British betting companies also offered odds for the various matches, as the league's profile, previously relatively unknown outside of the country, grew a larger audience due to sporting inactivity elsewhere.

Premier League in 2020

Soviet era champions


Performances

Performance by club

All-time table

RankClub1SeasonsDebutLast
Season		2GoalsPoints3Best Result
1Dinamo Minsk291992—8224881791551489–70316431st
2BATE Borisov221998—641431126841270–48614191st
3Shakhtyor Soligorsk291992—8223942012291192–82513731st
4Neman Grodno291992—823297213313907–99211042nd
5Dinamo Brest291992—8222952003271025–107010851st
6Dnepr Mogilev2519922018707261176260913–8899591st
7Vitebsk241992—672251169252767–8159222nd
8Gomel2419922019652251144257808–8218971st
9Belshina Bobruisk201993–94—578219128231784–7707851st
10Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino201992—572212145215664–6597814th
11Naftan Novopolotsk2119962017615190131294716–9456964th
12Slavia Mozyr171995—479179112198672–7036191st
13Torpedo Minsk1519922019428158115155481–4755894th
14Minsk122007—35712390143424–4314603rd
15Dinamo-93 Minsk71992–931998181994339296–1573402nd
16Molodechno-200012199220033238080163339–4903204th
17Partizan Minsk720042010198804276288–2812823rd
18Torpedo-Kadino Mogilev10199220002716476131266–4442687th
19Slutsk62014—177544479156–2142067th
20Vedrich-97 Rechitsa8199220012084644118167–3271828th
21Darida Minsk Raion620032008168443886165–2521708th
22Bobruisk519921995122443444119–1451664th
23Lida719922000182384698144–2891608th
24Isloch Minsk Raion42016—119412949119–1581525th
25Gorodeya42016—119364340132–1361517th
26Granit Mikashevichi420082016112313546112–1611285th
27Energetik-BGU Minsk52002—141283281155–29411612th
28Ataka Minsk3199519977529163086–931034th
29Lokomotiv Minsk420032008112232564100–1879411th
30Lokomotiv Vitebsk419921994–9510722275882–1819310th
31Smorgon3200720098218263858–114808th
32Kommunalnik Slonim3199720008915175766–1916211th
33Stroitel Starye Dorogi319921993–947714184548–1176014th
34Krumkachy Minsk2201620176014163050–865811th
35Transmash Mogilev11997199730841830–522814th
36Dnyapro Mogilev12019201929761629–422514th
37Luch Minsk120182018304121424–442413th
38Smolevichi12018—30591621–392415th
39Savit Mogilev12008200830561928–612115th
40Svisloch-Krovlya Osipovichi11999199930442224–741615th
41Rukh Brest02020—00000–00TBD

  1. For clubs that have been renamed, their name at the time of their most recent season in the Premier League is given. The current members are listed in bold.
  2. Includes 2002 championship play-off, 2004 relegation play-off, 14 games of Dinamo-93 in 1998 season, and 15 games of Torpedo Minsk in 2019 season.
  3. For the purposes of this table, each win is worth 3 points. The three-points system was adopted in fall 1995 season.

    Player of the year

Belarusian Premier League Player of the year is an annual award given by a sports newspaper Pressball.
SeasonPlayerClub
1992
 Valyantsin ByalkevichDinamo Minsk
1992–93
 Sergey GotsmanovDinamo Minsk
1993–94
 Yury ShukanovDinamo Minsk
1994–95
 Valyantsin ByalkevichDinamo Minsk
1995
 Valyantsin ByalkevichDinamo Minsk
1996
 Alyaksandr KulchyMPKC Mozyr
1997
 Andrei LavrikDinamo Minsk
1998
 Aleh KonanawTorpedo Minsk
1999
 Dmitri KarsakovSlavia Mozyr
2000
 Aleksandr LisovskyBATE Borisov
2001
 Vitali KutuzovBATE Borisov
2002
 Dzmitry LikhtarovichBATE Borisov
2003
 Timofei KalachevShakhtyor Soligorsk
2004
 Andrey RazinDinamo Minsk
2005
 Vital ValadzyankowDinamo Minsk
2006
 Oleg StrakhanovichMTZ-RIPO Minsk
2007
 Raman VasilyukGomel
2008
 Vitali RodionovBATE Borisov
2009
 Sergey KrivetsBATE Borisov
2010
 Renan BressanBATE Borisov
2011
 Renan BressanBATE Borisov
2012
 Stanislaw DrahunDinamo Minsk
2013
 Alexander HlebBATE Borisov
2014
 Ihar StasevichDinamo Minsk
2015
 Ihar StasevichBATE Borisov
2016
 Ihar StasevichBATE Borisov
2017
 Mikhail GordeichukBATE Borisov
2018
 Ihar StasevichBATE Borisov
2019
 Ihar StasevichBATE Borisov

Reserves League

An annual league competition is organized for the reserve teams of Premier League clubs since 2001. This tournament was won by the reserves of Dinamo Minsk, Gomel, Shakhtyor Soligorsk, BATE Borisov, Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino and Dnepr Mogilev.