The Iraqi Division One is the second-highest division of the Iraqi football league system after the Stars League. The league is contested by 24 clubs. It is operated by the Iraq Football Association (IFA). Each season, the two top-finishing teams in the Division One are automatically promoted to the Stars League. The four lowest-finishing teams in the Division One are relegated to Division Two.
The number of clubs in the league have changed throughout history, most recently in the 2021–22 season when the number of clubs decreased from 28 to 24.
It has previously been called the Second Division but has been known as the Division One since 2003. In the 2022–23 season, Al-Minaa won the title and were promoted alongside runners-up Amanat Baghdad. Thus, Al-Minaa was considered the record holder in the tournament (won 3 titles).
League structure
In November 2020, The Iraq FA announced that the number of teams will decrease from 28 to 24 in total starting from 2021 to 2022 season. To make these changes possible, the Iraq FA announced that in 2020–21 season, The top teams in each group are directly promoted to the Premier League, while 8 teams in total are directly relegated to Division Two.
On April 8, 2023, the promotion and relegation mechanism was changed, and the Football Association announced the promotion of the winning team in each group directly to the Stars League, and the relegation of the last two teams in the standings in each group to the Division Two, as a result, two teams are promote and 4 teams are relegate.
Name in the media
Iraqi Division One is called in the media by the name of Dawri Al-Madhaleem (Oppressed League), because the media, the Football Association, and the Referees Committee do not care about it, and the teams that play in it suffer from poor financing, and their stadiums are in a bad shape. However, the league includes very talented players, and the competition in it is so strong that it exceeds the competition in the Premier League.
