Promotion League
third tier of the Swiss Football League

The Promotion League, named the Hoval Promotion League for sponsorship reasons, is the third tier of the Swiss football league system. Eighteen clubs compete in the league, playing each other twice over course of the season. The champions are promoted to the second tier, the Challenge League, while the bottom two teams are relegated to the 1st League Classic.
The league forms the semi-professional bridge to amateur football.
Overview
Eighteen teams play each other twice, once home and once away, for a total of 34 games. The season begins in August and ends in May, interrupted through a winter break from late November to early March.
The team finishing in first place—subject to license requirements of professional football—will be promoted to the division above, in turn the last-placed team of the second division will be relegated for the following season. Similarly, the bottom two teams are relegated to the fourth tier and replaced respectively.
It is the highest league in Switzerland that permits participation of reserve teams.
History
The league was introduced as the 1.
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This entry incorporates text from “Promotion League” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.