Premier League

The Cymru Premier (also known as the Welsh Premier League) is the top tier of men’s football in Wales. It was formed in 1991 by the Football Association of Wales (FAW) and officially began play in August 1992, at the start of the 1992/93 season. Each season generally starts in August and runs through May in the following year. Under its current format, each season is divided into two phases, plus a play-off to determine which team also will qualify for European competition the next season.

The first part of the season usually starts in August and concludes in mid-January. Each team plays each other twice (both home and away). Once this part of the season finishes, the league then splits into two parts. The top sides based on points total comprise the Championship Conference, while the bottom sides based on points total comprise the Playoff Conference.

Following this, the second part of the season usually starts in early February and runs through late April. All points accumulated from part one of the season are carried forward into part two.

In each conference, each team plays one another twice (both home and away); however, the teams do not play against teams from the other conference.

The team who earns the most points in the Championship Conference after the full season (including part one) is crowned the League Champion and also gains a chance to compete in the UEFA Champions League. Meanwhile, the runner-up in the Championship Conference secures an opportunity to compete in the UEFA Europa Conference League, while the other remaining teams in the Championship Conference will take part in another mini-tournament to see who will qualify for European competition (the European competition play-offs).

The bottom teams in the Playoff Conference are automatically relegated, while the team who finishes top of the Playoff Conference also gets a chance to feature in the European competition play-offs.

Finally, the season concludes with the European competition play-offs, where several teams will compete against each other to earn a ticket to the UEFA Europa Conference League.

Interestingly, the Welsh Premier League is not a fully professional league with a mixed group of professional and semi-professional teams making up the competition. To date, The New Saints is among the most successful teams in Welsh Premier League history, with more titles won than any other side.

In terms of media coverage, the Welsh Premier League did not have a dedicated broadcaster in Wales. Rather, matches were covered by various channels. S4C became the primary TV broadcaster to the WPL during the late 1990s and early 2000s, until commercial broadcaster Setanta Sports acquired TV broadcast rights in the latter part of the 2000s. However, since the late 2010s, S4C have regained non-exclusive broadcast rights to the WPL, and while not all games are shown on its TV channels, the network does live-stream all games on its dedicated Facebook page.