New Zealand Football Championship

The Competition Stages

There are 7 regional federations which administer and promote football in New Zealand.

The League – during its initial 4 seasons, the teams played each other 3 times, but then the system was changed in 2008. Now the system is a home-and-away system because some of the participating clubs were affected by financial difficulties. Once the regular season has finished, the top 4 teams then move on to play in the playoffs.
The Championship – the championship, also known as the playoffs, operates as a home and away series of semi finals and the winners then go on to play a single match for the Grand Final. During the championship’s inaugural season, the playoffs phase was competed for by the highest scoring 3 clubs, and the Minor Premier winner, (i.e. the winner of the league phase of the competition) was then given hosting rights to host the grand final and the 2nd and 3rd teams then playing off against each other in a single game preliminary final. During the 2005-6 season there were experimentations with 5 teams in the playoff, but this didn’t catch on so the league went back to the original 3 team playoffs system during the following season.

There are 2 competition stages – The League (or regular season) and the playoffs, or, to give them their official title, The Championship. The teams which win the Minor Premier league phase as well as the champion of Grand Final then qualify to participate in the OFC Champions League. The Premiership hasn’t any lower divisions so there are no relegations or promotions just like other national competitions football leagues across the USA and Australia.

The History Of The Championship

Originally, there was the New Zealand National Soccer League tournament, which involved clubs across New Zealand Football’s regional governing bodies. The NZFC replaced this with the intention of running as a football summer league which involved new clubs which had solely been created for the competition. The successful original franchise bidders were Auckland City, Napier City Rovers, Canterbury United, Team Wellington FC, Otago United, Waikato FC, YoungHeart Manawatu and Waitakere United.

2004 saw the first ever NZFC match during which Napier City Rovers were defeated by Auckland City, who then went on to win 3-2 over Waitakere United in the grand final. 2013 saw YoungHeart Manawatu being dropped from the NZFC competition since they had finished in last place during the last 3 seasons. A team called Wanderers SC took their place, with the SC standing for Special Club. The following season, the Premiership was expanded to encompass 9 times with the Wellington Phoenix Reserves being included in the competition. Further restrictions were released at this time that required half of all players on the match day squad had to be eligible to be players for the All Whites.

By the 2016-17 season the league had expanded to include ten teams with the addition of Tasman United, Hamilton Wanderers and Eastern Suburbs and WaiBop United leaving the competition. The newly expanded league was rebranded in 2017 with a new name thanks to its 3 year-long sponsorship deal that had been made with ISPS Handa, making its new title the ISPS Handa Premiership.