♣ South African Premier Division

The South African Premier Division, officially referred to as the DStv Premiership for sponsorship purposes, is the premier men's professional soccer league and the highest division in the league system of South Africa, organised since 1996.

As the top-level division in South Africa, it is commonly referred to as the Premier Soccer League (PSL) – the administrator of association football in the country.

▼ Connection Pages

♣ History

The league was founded in 1996 after an agreement between the National Soccer League and the remnants of the National Professional Soccer League. It is stated on its website that the former name still exists today, but for legal purposes, with the Premier Soccer League being its trade name.

The league was reduced from 18 to 16 teams after the end of the 2001–02 season to avoid fixture congestion, causing the disbandment of two teams; Ria Stars and Free State Stars, though the latter was reformed and competing as of the 2020–21 season. In 2004, a match-fixing scandal rocked the football/soccer landscape in South Africa. An investigation codenamed "Operation Dribble" was launched by the police system of South Africa police in June 2004. More than 40 arrests were made, ranging from club bosses to match commissioners, referees and their assistants. Kaizer Chiefs successfully defended their league title in 2005 after they won the prestigious trophy in 2004 for the first time in a decade. The 2005–06 season saw Mamelodi Sundowns capturing the title for a fourth time. Since the 2017–18 season, they have dominated the league with winning league title after league title.

In 2007, the PSL signed a television deal with SuperSport worth R 1.6 billion, which was the biggest sporting deal in the history of the country and ranked the league into the top 15 in the world in terms of commercial broadcast deals. In the same year, ABSA replaced Castle Lager as the title sponsor, with the latter having sponsored the league since its inception. SuperSport United won 3 league titles in a row between 2008 and 2010.

As of May 2019, the league is rated as the 6th best in Africa according to the CAF 5-year ranking system.

For the 2018–19 season, the PSL gives each club a monthly grant of R 2 million, with funds coming from the television broadcasting rights and national sponsorships, with the league champion earning R 10 million.

In 2019, ABSA increased their sponsorship deal to the PSL to R 39.9 million, which meant that the league winners would secure R 15 million. ABSA would however announce its cancellation of its sponsorship with the PSL a year later on 4 June 2020.

On 24 September 2020, Dr. Irvin Khoza and MultiChoice announced on live television that the new sponsor would be DStv, effectively rebranding the league as the DStv Premiership. MultiChoice also announced that Showmax would replace DStv as the jersey sponsor of SuperSport United F.C. so the latter would be independent to sponsor the league outright.

♣ Qualification for CAF competitions

Association ranking for the 2021–22 CAF Champions League and the 2021–22 CAF Confederation Cup will be based on results from each CAF tournament from 2017 to 2020–21.

♣ Sponsorship

The league has had title sponsorships since its inception. Like the EFL Cup and the English Football League divisions in England, the league takes its title sponsor's name to determine its official common name:

1. 1996–2007: Castle Lager (Castle Premiership)
2. 2007–2020: ABSA (ABSA Premiership)
3. 2020–present: DStv (DStv Premiership)

♣ Format

As of the 2021–22 season, the league is composed of 16 teams competing from August to May each season, similar to the format of most European football leagues. Each team plays the other teams twice in a double round-robin format using the three points for a win system.

At the conclusion of each season, the champion and runner-up of the Premier Division qualify for the CAF Champions League, while the 3rd-place team and the Nedbank Cup champions qualify for the CAF Confederation Cup. The bottom team in the league is automatically relegated and replaced by the winner of the Motsepe Foundation Championship, whiles the team finishing immediately above the bottom team enters a mini-league playoff series with the 2nd and 3rd-placed league-finished teams of the National First Division, with the playoff winners earning their place in the Premiership for the following season.

♣ Clubs

▤ View all Clubs →

♣ Broadcasting

The league's broadcaster is SuperSport, who in turn sub-leases the broadcasting rights to the SABC, so as to broadcast some matches on public television in South Africa. SuperSport was awarded an initial $277 million 5-year broadcast/TV rights deal in 2007 by the Premier Soccer League to help commercialize the league globally beyond South Africa. matches on sunset times between Tuesdays and Fridays and on weekends whereas the SABC telecast matches played on Wednesday nights and on weekends.

Since 2016, as SuperSport is a brand owned by the MultiChoice Group, the league is available to watch live and on demand via their specified services; the DStv App (formerly DStv Mobile and DStv Now) and Showmax Pro. Both are accessible via the DStv website for PC and Mac and as mobile apps on Android and iOS/iPadOS for mobile phones, tablets and Smart TVs.

♣ Champions

▤ View all tables →

♣ Player records

Top scorers

Winning managers

▶ PSL Go Page

▶ Player Records and statistics Go Page

♣ Non-CAF competition

The 1982 African Super Cup is a match which took place on January 25, 1982 during the Tournament of Fraternity in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. JS Kabylie won this trophy against the Cameroonians of Union Douala. The newspaper France Football commented on this event of the birth of the brand new African Super Cup.