Campeonato Brasileiro Série A
The Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, commonly referred to as the Brasileirão, and also known as Brasileirão Betano due to sponsorship with Betano, is a Brazilian professional league for men's football clubs. At the top of the Brazilian football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the Campeonato Brasileiro Série B. In 2021, the competition was chosen by the IFFHS as the strongest national league in South America as well as the strongest in the world.
São Paulo Athletic Club and CA Paulistano in the final of the first São Paulo State Championship in 1902
The 1970 Taça de Prata awarded to Fluminense
Garrincha playing for Botafogo in the 1960s
Group photo of the 1978 Guarani squad, from the city of Campinas, winners of the 1978 Campeonato Nacional de Clubes. Together with Santos, they are the only teams not belonging to a state capital to become national champions.
In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams can move up and down between multiple divisions arranged in a hierarchical structure, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. In a system of promotion and relegation, the best-ranked team(s) in a lower division are promoted to a higher division for the next season, and the worst-ranked team(s) in the higher division are relegated to the lower division for the next season. During the season, teams that are high enough in the league table that they would qualify for promotion are sometimes said to be in the promotion zone, and those at the bottom are in the relegation zone.
Södertälje SK-Leksands IF during a 2007 Kvalserien game.
SV Darmstadt 98 fans celebrated promotion to the German Bundesliga in 2015.
... while Preston North End fans mourned relegation to English League One in 2011.