Asmaral Moscow

Russian Premier League

The Russian Premier League (also known as Rosgosstrakh Championship of Russia) is the top division of Russian football. There are 16 teams in the competition. At the end of the season two teams get relegated to the Russian First Division and get replaced with the two top First Division teams.

The Russian Premier League was organized in 2001 and succeeded the Top Division, the difference being that the Top Division was run by the Professional Football League of Russia, and the creation of the Premier League gave the clubs a greater degree of independence.

Zenit Saint Petersburg are the current Russian Premier League champions.

History

After the break-up of the Soviet Union, starting in 1992, each former Soviet republic organized an independent national championship. In Russia, the 6 Russian teams who had played in the Soviet Top League in 1991 (CSKA Moscow, Spartak Moscow, Torpedo Moscow, Dinamo Moscow, Spartak Vladikavkaz, and Lokomotiv Moscow) were supplemented with 14 teams from lower divisions to organize 20-team Russian Top Division. The Top Division was further divided into two groups to reduce the total number of matches. The number of teams in the Top Division was gradually reduced to 18 in 1993 and 16 in 1994. Since then, the Russian Top Division (and subsequently the Premier League) has consisted of 16 teams, except for a short-lived experiment with having two more teams in 1996 and 1997.

Spartak Moscow was the dominant force in the Top Division, winning 9 of the first 10 titles. Spartak-Alania Vladikavkaz was the only team which managed to break Spartak's dominance, winning the Top Division title in 1995.

Lokomotiv Moscow won the title twice, and CSKA Moscow three times.

In 2007, Zenit Saint Petersburg climbed to the top. Zenit won the title for the first time. They also won a Soviet title in 1984.

Competition

Each team in the league plays each opponent twice, one 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 the teams are level on points, the tie-breakers are the number of wins, then the goal difference, followed by several others. 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, the championship play-off is ordered.

As of 2007, the champions qualify for the UEFA Champions League, and the runners-up for the Champions League qualification. Teams that finished 3rd , 4th or 5th qualify for the UEFA Cup qualification. Two bottom teams are relegated to the First Division.

Unlike other European football leagues, the league typically runs in summer, from March to November, to avoid playing games under the cold and snowy weather in winter.

2008 clubs

In the 2008 season the Russian Premier League consists of the following teams:

Champions and top scorers

Season	Champion	Runner-up	3rd position	Top scorer
1992*	Spartak Moscow	Spartak Vladikavkaz	Dynamo Moscow	Veli Kasumov (Dynamo, 16 goals)
1993*	Spartak Moscow (2)	Rotor Volgograd	Dynamo Moscow	Victor Panchenko (KamAZ, 21 goals)
1994*	Spartak Moscow (3)	Dynamo Moscow	Lokomotiv Moscow	Igor Simutenkov (Dynamo, 21 goals)
1995*	Spartak-Alania Vladikavkaz	Lokomotiv Moscow	Spartak Moscow	Oleg Veretennikov (Rotor, 25 goals)
1996*	Spartak Moscow (4)	Alania Vladikavkaz	Rotor Volgograd	Aleksandr Maslov (Rostselmash, 23 goals)
1997*	Spartak Moscow (5)	Rotor Volgograd	Dynamo Moscow	Oleg Veretennikov (Rotor, 22 goals)
1998**	Spartak Moscow (6)	CSKA Moscow	Lokomotiv Moscow	Oleg Veretennikov (Rotor, 22 goals)
1999**	Spartak Moscow (7)	Lokomotiv Moscow	CSKA Moscow	Georgi Demetradze (Alania, 21 goals)
2000**	Spartak Moscow (8)	Lokomotiv Moscow	Torpedo Moscow	Dmitri Loskov (Lokomotiv, 15 goals)
2001**	Spartak Moscow (9)	Lokomotiv Moscow	Zenit Saint Petersburg	Dmitri Vyazmikin (Torpedo, 18 goals)
2002	Lokomotiv Moscow	CSKA Moscow	Spartak Moscow	Rolan Gusev (CSKA, 15 goals) Dmitri Kirichenko (CSKA, 15 goals)
2003	CSKA Moscow	Zenit Saint Petersburg	Rubin Kazan	Dmitri Loskov (Lokomotiv, 14 goals)
2004	Lokomotiv Moscow (2)	CSKA Moscow	Krylya Sovetov Samara	Aleksandr Kerzhakov (Zenit, 18 goals)
2005	CSKA Moscow (2)	Spartak Moscow	Lokomotiv Moscow	Dmitri Kirichenko (Moskva, 14 goals)
2006	CSKA Moscow (3)	Spartak Moscow	Lokomotiv Moscow	Roman Pavlyuchenko (Spartak Moscow, 18 goals)
2007	Zenit Saint Petersburg	Spartak Moscow	CSKA Moscow	Roman Pavlyuchenko (Spartak Moscow, 14 goals) Roman Adamov (Moskva, 14 goals)
* The league was named Top League ** The league was named Top Division

UEFA Ranking

National League Ranking at the beginning of the 2008 season

(see UEFA coefficients full list for more information)

All-time table

As of end of 2007 season

Rank	Club¹	Seasons	Most recent season	Played²	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goals	Points³
1	Spartak Moscow	16		489	287	121	81	976-480	982
2	Lokomotiv Moscow	16		489	252	135	102	755-435	891
3	CSKA Moscow	16		489	240	120	129	761-490	840
4	Dynamo Moscow	16		488	203	141	144	704-564	750
5	Torpedo Moscow	15	2006	462	182	131	149	597-553	677
6	Zenit Saint Petersburg	13		398	171	111	116	547-430	624
7	Krylya Sovetov Samara	16		492	164	128	200	543-640	620
8	Alania Vladikavkaz	14	2005	429	168	93	168	579-569	597
9	Rotor Volgograd	13	2004	402	151	109	142	562-506	562
10	Rostov	15	2007	458	122	139	197	484-645	505
11	Saturn Moscow Oblast	9		270	92	93	85	305-270	369
12	Shinnik Yaroslavl	9		274	80	79	115	269-355	319
13	Chernomorets Novorossiysk	8	2003	248	74	65	109	274-357	287
14	Moskva	7		210	70	63	77	222-247	273
15	Lokomotiv Nizhny Novgorod	8	2000	248	68	63	117	233-356	267
16	Zhemchuzhina Sochi	7	1999	222	61	57	104	263-390	240
17	Rubin Kazan	5		150	59	41	50	195-167	218
18	Uralmash Yekaterinburg	5	1996	158	57	33	68	215-241	204
19	Energia-Tekstilshchik Kamyshin	5	1996	158	53	43	62	172-177	202
20	KAMAZ-Chally Naberezhnye Chelny	5	1997	162	51	32	79	198-253	179⁴
21	Uralan Elista	5	2003	150	36	39	75	138-225	147
22	Amkar Perm	4		120	31	46	43	105-142	139
23	Baltika Kaliningrad	3	1998	98	30	37	31	114-111	127
24	Fakel Voronezh	4	2001	124	31	29	64	101-175	122
25	Luch-Energia Vladivostok	3		94	31	20	43	92-134	113
26	Tom Tomsk	3		90	28	29	33	100-101	113
27	Anzhi Makhachkala	3	2002	90	27	28	35	94-108	109
28	Dynamo Stavropol	3	1994	94	27	23	44	94-125	104
29	Tyumen	5	1998	154	25	26	103	116-326	101
30	Kuban Krasnodar	3	2007	90	17	30	43	77-133	81
31	Okean Nakhodka	2	1993	64	22	14	28	65-83	80
32	Spartak Nalchik	2		60	19	17	24	62-70	74
33	Asmaral Moscow	2	1993	60	19	11	30	74-102	68
34	Sokol Saratov	2	2002	60	17	13	30	55-87	64
35	Lada Togliatti	2	1996	64	10	16	38	42-105	46
36	Khimki	1		30	9	10	11	32-33	37
37	FC Terek Grozny	1		30	5	5	20	20-50	14⁵

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.
Includes championship play-offs.
For the purposes of this table, each win is worth 3 points. The three-points system was adopted in 1995.
KAMAZ-Chally were deducted 6 points in 1997.
Terek were deducted 6 points in 2005.

Players with most appearances

As of 25 August 2008

Rank	Player	Apps
1	Valery Yesipov	390
2	Dmitri Loskov	378
3	Sergei Semak	365
4	Andrey Tikhonov	336
5	Yegor Titov	326
6	Yury Drozdov	321
7	Igor Chugaynov	317
8	Yury Kovtun	304
9	Igor Semshov	300
10	Aleksandr Filimonov	295

All-time top scorers

As of 4 September 2008

Rank	Player	Goals
1	Oleg Veretennikov	143
2	Dmitri Loskov	110
3	Dmitri Kirichenko	103
4	Andrey Tikhonov	97
5	Valery Yesipov	88
6	Egor Titov	87
7	Sergei Semak	85
8	Oleg Teryokhin	84
9	Roman Pavlyuchenko	83
10	Aleksandr Shirko	78