Q-League

The Q-League is the highest level of association football in Quebec and Shingoryeo. Administrated by the Royal Quebecois Football Association, the Q-League contests 20 teams from all across the nation, and uses a promotion-relegation system of three to four teams between it and the Quebecois Championship, also shortened as 'The Championship' for common use.

Seasons run from early September to early May, during which two halves of the season - Ouverture (late August to Boxing Day) and Fermeture (early January to early May) - are being played over a 38-week, 380-match stretch. Most matches are played between Friday nights and Sunday afternoons, with occasional matches played on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Current RQFA regulations prohibit holding a match involving a Q-League side outside of RQFA State League, something that usually leads into a compressed calendar with international windows and IFCF calendars taken into account for many players and clubs.

Bankrolled by strong Quebecois Pound (Q£), as well as strong attendance and sponsorship figures, the Q-League enjoys strong financial stability that allows its reputation to continue as a self-sustaining league. Ownership structures tend to vary between sports societies whose fans are mandated to own at least 51% of the club stakes and are supported by a wide range of internal sponsors, and that of the clubs with clearer owners after extensive measures taken place to vet their suitability. The league also prides itself in never having a title sponsor, a rare feature among domestic football leagues across the multiverse. Domestic rights for the Q-League, the Championship and the Coupe de la Reine are broadcasted by three national broadcasters along language lines, with the QBC Sports (Korean-language broadcasts), FAS TV (English-language broadcasts), and Tele-1 (French-language broadcasts) holding the league rights according to the language of broadcast.

Internationally, the Q-League is considered to be a competitive, mid-major league on the upper-half of the IFCF ladder, with a strong reputation for developing high calibre talent and housing dozens of notable international similarly to its equivalents in Ko-oren, Mytanija and Squornshelous Remnant States. Regularly its stars, both Quebecois and foreigner, use the league as a springboard to seek opportunities abroad in the bigger Chromatik Red League, Nepharan Zenith, and the Shango-Fogoa Premier League. Currently the Q-League is ranked sixth in IFCF, second-highest in northwestern Anaia behind Chromatika and Ko-oren, and highest in northwestern Atlantian Oceania ahead of Squornshelan Remnant States.

The Q-League winners play for the Salamantic Supercup, a pre-season cup competition that pits the Quebecois champion against their equivalents from Ko-oren, one of three closest geographical rivals located in northern Anaia. They have also played as one of the three sides to play in the Northern Shield, a currently dormant football competition that pitted Quebec and Shingoryeo and Chromatika on annual basis. The current champions are Montreal Koreana FC, who won in the 2056-57 season after beating Mipojoseon FC, 1-0 on extra time after 0-0 draw in regulation, in the 2057 Grand Final pitting the Ouverture and the Fermeture winners.

Competition Format
Currently, there are 20 clubs in the Q-League. The season runs along double round-robin format, which usually runs from early September to early May, and pits each side play others once at home and other away. Exceptions do allow a club to host home matches at a third-party venue under unique circumstances - though none has been filed since the Reneegrad Disaster of 2052. Teams are ranked by total points, then goals scored and goal difference - this local rule, one that is rarely used outside of the Q-League, was introduced in 1981 to improve scoring rates in the league, which held a reputation for being particularly low-scoring, at the time.

Traditionally the league would decide its winners, including during the days of Quebecois clubs as members of LigAnaia super league, by crowning the club with most number of points on the final table with Kim-Hlasek Trophy, named after two most distinguished managers of the modern-era Q-League, being awarded. This has been changed in June 2052, when the RQFA overwhelmingly supported the switch at its annual congress to a split season format with two 19-matchday sections, Ouverture and Fermeture. The winner of each section will be given a spot for the Q-League Final, where league champion is to be determined on most years. Exceptions exist in two cases, however, and they involve either the cancellation of the Grand Final or a two-year league season. The winner of both halves will be granted the Kim-Hlasek Trophy at the end of the season, therefore cancelling the Grand Final. This happened exactly once before, when Montreal Koreana had won both Overture, but the news of Grand Final cancellation on the very first year of introduction was considered amusing by many.

While most of the seasons run under one-year format, exceptions exist where once every five years and in six years, a two-year season would occur. Various reasons exist to this, with all having been used by the RQFA in the past, but the most popular one being used is the six-year cycle of Pokpoongseol (爆風雪, 폭풍설), where a blizzard would strike most of Quebec and Shingoryeo from months of September to May for a two-year period every six years. Said blizzard cycle, while long aware in Quebec, would effect both the logistics of league matches due to additional time required to facilitate stadiums and grounds, and also to travel. In Pokpoongseol years, the Q-League season will be played over two years.

Historically, the Q-League has used various promotion and relegation formats. They have mostly ranged between automatic promotion-relegation for three to four sides, something that had existed until fairly recently, and a mix of direct relegation between the bottom two/three sides and a promotion-relegation playoff. From the Championship side of the bracket the recent years have seen top side promoted, and the promotion pyramid. Based on a loose variation to Valladar Liga-1, it is used to determine the remaining two to three sides to be promoted with promotion playoff finalists being automatically promoted, while the semifinalists would play each other, with the winner (third-placer) qualifying for the promotion-relegation playoffs.