The MPT Myanmar National League ( my, မြန်မာ နေရှင်နယ် လိဂ်; abbreviated MNL) is the premier national professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

league of Myanmar. In 2009, the league replaced the Myanmar Premier League, which consisted only of 14

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

-based

football clubs A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an all ...

, with eight professional clubs representing different regions across the nation. On 16 May 2009, the league launched its inaugural two-month tournament, the

Myanmar National League Cup 2009 MNL Cup Grand Royal 2009 is the inaugural knock-out club football tournament of the Myanmar National League. The tournament, held at the Aung San Stadium and the Thuwunna Stadium in Yangon between 16 May and 5 July 2009, was contested by all eight ...

in preparation for the first full season in 2010. Despite its national ambitions, the league held the MNL Cup 2009 matches in the country's two main stadiums in Yangon due to the lack of adequate facilities elsewhere. On 5 July 2009,

Yadanabon FC Yadanarbon Football Club ( my, ရတနာပုံ ဘောလုံး အသင်း ) is a Burmese professional football club based at the Bahtoo Stadium in Mandalay. The club was a founding member of the Myanmar National League in 2009. ...

defeated Yangon United FC in the MNL Cup final to become the first-ever MNL Champions. The league added three clubs for the 2010 season and one more club joined for the 2011 season, bringing the total to twelve clubs. Two more clubs representing the Chin and Shan States will participate in the MNL season starting in January 2012. Promotion and relegation will be added by the 2014 season as the MNL looks to expand once again.

History

Origins

In the past, professional football competition in Myanmar has only existed in a limited form. All premier leagues up to this point have been made up of Yangon-based football clubs, most of which were affiliated with government Ministries. It was only after 1996, when the Premier League ( my, ပထမတန်း) was relaunched as the Myanmar Premier League that non-government clubs were invited to join the league. Still, the league was based only in Yangon, and never caught the imagination of Burmese football fans, who follow European football with near religious fervor. The

Myanmar Football Federation The Myanmar Football Federation (MFF) ( my, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ဘောလုံး အဖွဲ့ချုပ်) is the governing body of football in Myanmar. The MFF oversees the Burmese men's national team, the women ...

sought approval from the government to launch a nationwide league in February 2008, and finally received permission to set up private clubs in December 2008. Each club was permitted to sign at most five foreign players and one foreign coach. The government granted each club tax exemptions for an initial three-year period, while each club owner must provide a minimum initial investment of Ks.200 million (approximately US$200,000). It was expected that the annual operating cost for each club would be about Ks.500 million (US$500,000). The investment apparently covers costs such as salaries, transportation and equipment, but does not include the club stadiums, which are all nationalized.

Myanmar Derby

Myanmar Derby or The Classic Match of Myanmar is the matchup between

Yangon United Yangon United Football Club ( my, ရန်ကုန် ယူနိုက်တက် ဘောလုံးအသင်း ) is a Burmese football club, based at Yangon United Sports Complex, in Yangon, Myanmar. Owned by Tay Za, a prominent Bu ...

and Yadanarbon. It is the matchup that presents Myanmar football in the modern era. The name was given to the encounter of two teams due to the hype and massive atmosphere around the match. The first encounter between them happened in the 2009 MNL Cup season. On 18 June 2009, Yadanarbon and Yangon United met at

Thuwunna Stadium The Thuwunna Youth Training Center Stadium ( my, သုဝဏ္ဏ လူငယ် လေ့ကျင့်ရေး ကွင်း), simply known as the Thuwunna Stadium, is a multi-purpose stadium located in Yangon, Myanmar. It is the venue o ...

. Before the match, Yadanarbon was the leader in the table after 3 matches of the season while Yangon followed in second with one less point. Yadanarbon made the lead by 2–1 in the first forty-five minutes but Yangon bounced back to draw by the 2–2 result at the end. The match was full of the exciting and dramatic moments. Then, it was considered one of the most classic matches in Myanmar League history. The Yangon United versus Yadanarbon matchup was dubbed as " Myanmar Derby" ever since then.

Yangon Utd dominance

The Yangon Utd Dominance refers to the 2011 to 2013 season, which

won Myanmar National League in three consecutive seasons as the first club in the league history.

The first invincible

In 2019 season, Shan United under Mr. Aung Naing head coach Myanmar, had become the first club in the league history that completed the season with an unbeaten record. Shan United finished at the top of the final standing with 12 wins and 10 draws. They have earned a second invincible season, this time with Mr. Han Win Aung. They have won 15 matches and drew three.

Champions

''(For Burmese Champions before 2009, see Myanmar Premier League)''

Wins by club

The Invincibles

Unbeaten champions: * Shan United in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

and

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...

Clubs

Name Change

Delta United changed their name to

Ayeyawady United Ayeyawady United Football Club ( my, ဧရာဝတီယူနိုက်တက် ဘောလုံးအသင်း) is a Burmese football club, based at Pathein Stadium in Pathein, Myanmar. The club was a founding member of the Myanma ...

to represent the

Ayeyawady Division Ayeyarwady Region ( my, ဧရာဝတီတိုင်းဒေသကြီး , , ; formerly Ayeyarwady Division and Irrawaddy Division), is a region of Myanmar, occupying the delta region of the Ayeyarwady River (Irrawaddy River). It is b ...

. Okkathar United changed their name to Hantharwaddy United to represent the

Bago Division Bago Region ( my, ပဲခူးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Pegu Division and Bago Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the southern central part of the country. It is bordered by Magway Region a ...

. Mahar United changed their name to Sagaing United to represent the

Sagaing Division Sagaing Region ( my, စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Sagaing Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and lo ...

2022 Locations and Stadiums

(*) – not ready to play. MNL clubs that have not had their home stadia ready to host home matches currently use

Aung San Stadium The Bogyoke Aung San Stadium () is a multi-purpose stadium, located in downtown Yangon, Myanmar. It was built as an athletic ground in 1906, which was completed in 1909 and named as Burma Athletic Association Ground, where many sports were held ...

and

in Yangon.

Records

All-time top scorers

Figures for active players (in bold).

Most appearances

Figures for active players (in bold) .

Player statistics

*Youngest player: Myat Kaung Khant ( Yadanarbon) — 17 years, 6 months and 0 days (15 January 2018, Yadanarbon 5–2

2018 Myanmar National League The 2018 Myanmar National League, also known as the 2018 MPT Myanmar National League, is the 9th season of the Myanmar National League, the top Burmese professional league for association football clubs since its founding in 2009. The departure o ...

) *Oldest player: Phoe Chit ( Sagaing United) — 38 years,(17 August 2019, Dagon 5-2 Sagaing United, 2019 Myanmar National League) * Youngest scorer: Myat Kaung Khant ( Yadanarbon) — 17 years, 6 months and 0 days (15 January 2018, Yadanarbon 5–2

) * Oldest scorer: Phoe Chit ( Sagaing United) — 38 years,(17 August 2019, Dagon 5-2 Sagaing United, 2019 Myanmar National League) * Fastest scorer: Nyi Nyi Min ( Dagon) - 2 minutes (17 August 2019, Dagon 5-2 Sagaing United) * Most consecutive matches scored: Yadanarbon - 21 Matches * Most consecutive unconceded matches: 7 matches ** Kyaw Zin Htet (

) * All time most clean sheets: 630 minutes — Kyaw Zin Htet * Most goals in a season: 28 goals — Cezar Augusto (

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the April ...

) * Most assists in a season: 9 goals —

Hein Htet Aung Hein Htet Aung ( my, ဟိန်းထက်အောင်; born 5 October 2001 ) is a Burmese professional footballer who plays as a winger or a forward for Selangor in Malaysia Super League. He is a graduate of Myanmar Football Academy. ...

, Lwin Moe Aung (

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...

) *Most titles won: 6 times —

David Htan David Htan ( my, ဒေးဗစ်ထန်; born 13 May 1990) is a Burmese professional footballer who plays as a right-back for Myanmar national football team and Shan United F.C. Style of play Despite lacking in height, he has a good pos ...

(

- 4 times, Shan United - 2 times) *Most seasons appeared: 13 seasons —

(2009-2022) *All-time record for highest football transfer fee Myanmar players: Ks.15 million—

Zaw Min Tun Zaw Min Tun ( my, ဇော်မင်းထွန်း; born 20 May 1992) is a Burmese professional footballer who plays as a centre back for Malaysia Super League club Penang and the captain of the Myanmar national team. He was the bronze ...

(2014)

Awards

Prize money

* Champion: Ks.10,00,00,000/- * Runner-up: Ks.7,50,00,000/- * Third Place: Ks.5,00,00,000/-

Top scorers

Coach of the Year

Player of the Year

Titles won

Managers

Winning managers

Competition format and sponsorship

Competition

There are 12 clubs in the Myanmar League. During the course of a season, which lasts from January to October, each club plays the others twice, once at their home stadium and once at that of their opponents, for a total of 22 games. Teams receive three points for a win and one point for a draw. No points are awarded for a loss. Teams are ranked by total points, then head-to-head, then

goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches a ...

, and then goals scored. At the end of each season, the club with the most points is crowned champion. If points are equal, the head-to-head, the goal difference and then goals scored determine the winner. If still equal, teams are deemed to occupy the same position. If there is a tie for the championship, for relegation, or for qualification to other competitions, a play-off match at a neutral venue decides rank. The two lowest placed teams are relegated into the

MNL-2 The MNL-2 is the second-tier football league of Myanmar. The official name is MNL-2 League. The inaugural season began in 2013. History The MNL-2 was founded in 2013 as part of MFF's effort to extend competitiveness into the nation's football sys ...

and the top two teams from the MNL-2 are promoted in their place.

Qualification for Asian competitions

In the past the champions will play in

AFC Champions League The AFC Champions League (abbreviated as ACL) is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's top-division football clubs. It is the most prestigious club competition ...

playoffs and

AFC Cup The AFC Cup is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Under its current rules, the competition is played primarily between clubs from nations that did not receive direct qualifying ...

for the champions of

General Aung San Shield General Aung San Shield (formerly ''MFF Cup'') is the top football knockout tournament in Myanmar. On 26 March 2014, MFF League Committee Meeting decides the knock-out cup (General Aung San Shield) winner would compete in ''Toyota Mekong Champion ...

. Due to reforms from the

AFC AFC may stand for: Organizations * Action for Children, a UK children's charity * AFC Enterprises, the franchisor of Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits * Africa Finance Corporation, a pan-African multilateral development finance institution * A ...

for the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup format, there will be no more a direct qualification spot for the

for that Myanmar Champion, for the time being.

Sponsorship

The Myanmar League has been sponsored since 2009 until 2010 and has been sponsored again since 2015. The sponsor has been able to determine the league's sponsorship name. The list below details who the sponsors have been and what they called the competition: Since 2013, 100PLUS has been the sponsor of

and MNL. The sponsorship is extended to 2020 to support major football events in the country, the various football teams within the national setup, football tournaments for youth development and the local professional competitions.

Match balls

* The 2009–2018 season uses the

Nike Nike often refers to: * Nike (mythology), a Greek goddess who personifies victory * Nike, Inc., a major American producer of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment Nike may also refer to: People * Nike (name), a surname and feminine give ...

. * The 2019–2020 season uses the

Molten Melting, or fusion, is a physical process that results in the phase transition of a substance from a solid to a liquid. This occurs when the internal energy of the solid increases, typically by the application of heat or pressure, which ...

Youth League

Like the reserve league, the youth league is open to all the youth teams of all professional clubs in Thailand.

Other tournaments

;Domestic tournaments *

(2010–present) *

MFF Charity Cup The MFF Charity Cup is Myanmar football's annual match contested between the champions of the previous Myanmar National League season and the holders of the General Aung San Shield at Aung San Stadium. If the Myanmar National League champions als ...

(as MFF Opening Cup 2012–2015) (2016–present) ;International tournaments *

(2014–present) *

(2011-present) *

Mekong Club Championship The Mekong Club Championship was an ASEAN club competition for men's association football clubs. Five teams entered as respective domestic league winners from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The championship was sponsored by Toyota ...

(2016–present)

Ranking Asian

AFC Club Ranking

References

External links

Official website

Soccer Myanmar Website

{{AFC Leagues 1 Top level football leagues in Asia Sports leagues established in 2009