The 2020 Categoría Primera A season (officially known as the 2020 Liga BetPlay Dimayor season for sponsorship reasons) was the 73rd season of the Categoría Primera A, Colombia's top-flight football league. The season began on 23 January and concluded on 29 December 2020. América de Cali entered the season as defending champions having won the 2019 Finalización tournament, and managed to defend their title by beating Santa Fe 3–2 on aggregate in the finals, winning their fifteenth domestic league championship.
The competition was suspended from 13 March to 12 September due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Format
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the league season was planned to be played as follows:
Two tournaments per year, with three stages each. The first stage would be contested on a single round-robin basis, with each team playing the other teams once plus an additional match against a regional rival for a total of 20 games. Due to the 2020 Copa América scheduled to be held in the country from mid-June to mid-July, and in order to conclude the Torneo Apertura on 24 May, the second stage for this tournament would be a knockout round contested by the top four teams at the end of the first stage, with the best-placed team at the end of the first stage facing the fourth-best placed team and the second-best placed team playing the third-best placed one in a double-legged series. The Torneo Finalización would feature the semifinal stage as it was played during the previous season. The finals in both tournaments would be contested by the winners of each semifinal tie or group, playing a double-legged series for the championship. The distribution of international qualification berths as well as the relegation system would not change.
On 25 July 2020, DIMAYOR's General Assembly decided to continue playing the Torneo Apertura as the only tournament to be held in the season, with the semifinal stage originally planned for the Torneo Finalización. The allocation of international qualification berths was also altered, with the Copa Libertadores berth originally allocated to the Finalización winners going to the league runners-up, and the fourth Copa Sudamericana berth going to the winner of a play-off involving the aggregate table fourth best team not qualified for the Copa Libertadores and the 12 teams that fail to qualify for the semifinal stage. Further format changes were confirmed on 13 August 2020, with DIMAYOR's General Assembly deciding to suspend relegation for this season and postpone it until the end of the first semester of 2021, in order to ensure teams could be able to play the same amount of matches as originally scheduled before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On 9 September 2020, DIMAYOR confirmed the format to be used for the remainder of the season, with the single round-robin stage started in the Torneo Apertura being resumed and played as planned and eight teams advancing out of the first stage. The semifinal stage was ultimately replaced by double-legged knockout series to decide the league champions, whilst the 12 teams that failed to qualify for the knockout stage would be sorted into three groups of four teams, with the group winners and the best group runners-up advancing to a single-legged semifinal stage and the winners of those semifinals facing each other in a single-legged final, with its winner playing against the aggregate table fourth-best placed team not qualified for the 2021 Copa Libertadores for the Colombia 4 berth to the 2021 Copa Sudamericana.
Teams
20 teams took part, eighteen of them returning from last season plus Deportivo Pereira and Boyacá Chicó, who were promoted from the 2019 Primera B. Both promoted teams replaced Unión Magdalena and Atlético Huila who were relegated at the end of the previous season by having finished as the bottom two teams of the relegation table.
Stadia and locations
Managerial changes
Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic
On 13 March 2020, after a meeting with its member clubs, DIMAYOR announced the temporary suspension of the tournament, along with the Primera B and Copa Colombia ones, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.