Origins In 1994,
PSSI merged teams from
Perserikatan, a popular league for amateur clubs representing regional football associations, and
Galatama, a less popular league made up of semi-professional teams, to form Liga Indonesia. This effort integrated the fanaticism in Perserikatan and the professionalism of Galatama with the aim of improving the quality of Indonesian football. This step ushered in a tiered system in the Indonesian competitive football scene. The group stage like Perserikatan was combined with a full competition system followed by the semi-final and final rounds like Galatama.
Foundation The modern competition era started in 2008 with the Indonesia Super League (ISL). The
first season began with 18 clubs. The first Indonesia Super League goal was scored by
Ernest Jeremiah of
Persipura in a 2–2 draw against
Sriwijaya F.C. The 18 inaugural members of the new Indonesia Super League were Persipura,
Persiwa,
Persib,
Persik, Sriwijaya,
Persela,
Persija,
PSM,
Pelita Jaya,
Arema,
Persijap,
Persiba,
PKT Bontang,
Persitara,
PSMS,
Deltras,
Persita, and
PSIS. Originally,
Persiter and
Persmin qualified to register but they failed the verification requirements to be inaugural members of the Indonesia Super League.
Dualism As the football scene in Indonesia was heavily politicized with rival factions upending each other, conflict was the norm prior to 2017. The worst conflict occurred in 2011. After the inauguration of the new PSSI board in 2011, a member of PSSI's Executive Committee and chairman of its Competition Committee, Sihar Sitorus, appointed PT Liga Prima Indonesia Sportindo (LPIS) as the new league operator replacing PT Liga Indonesia (LI) because LI failed to provide an accountability report to PSSI. Sitorus, one of many politicians in PSSI, announced the Indonesia Premier League as the new top-level competition in Indonesia. Upon the emergence of
Liga Primer Indonesia (LPI), PSSI did not recognize the validity of ISL. ISL teams like PSM,
Persema, and
Persibo, which had boycotted the ISL operators due to referee and management decisions, gladly defected to join LPI along with splinters of existing ISL teams. However, the 2011 LPI season was stopped mid-season, due to continued schism within PSSI; a new league,
Indonesian Premier League (IPL; ) replaced it in late 2011 for the 2011–12 season. Before the schism of PSSI, Sitorus triggered more controversy when he said the new competition would be divided into two regions and there would be an addition of six clubs in the top division, which angered many association members. 14 teams that were supposed to be Indonesia Premier League contestants chose to support the Indonesia Super League that continued to roll under the support of the pro-IPL faction, despite being labeled as an illegal competition. The official PSSI, supported by
FIFA and
AFC, did not recognize the ISL for two seasons. In the meantime, the Indonesian Premier League became the top-tier league from 2011 to 2013 with only 11 teams. In a PSSI extraordinary congress on 17 March 2013, association members slammed Sitorus and decided that the Indonesia Super League would once again emerge as the top-level competition, following the disbandment of the Indonesian Premier League. Sitorus and five other PSSI board members were suspended from the sport for their roles in the split (locally referred to as , ) that disrupted Indonesian football. The new PSSI board also decided that the best seven teams of the
2013 Indonesian Premier League, following verification, would join the unified league.
Semen Padang,
Persiba Bantul, Persijap, and PSM passed verification, while
Perseman,
Persepar, and
Pro Duta did not, meaning the
2014 season was contested with 22 teams.
Government intervention and FIFA suspension The impact of split haunted Indonesian football years after the reconsolidation. On 18 April 2015, Minister of Youth and Sports Affairs Imam Nahrawi officially banned the activities of PSSI after PSSI refused to recognize the recommendations from the Indonesian Professional Sports Agency (; BOPI), an agency under the ministry, that Arema Cronus and
Persebaya ISL should not pass ISL verification because there were still other clubs using the same name. Previously, Nachrawi had sent three letters of reprimand. However, PSSI refused to answer his call until a predetermined deadline. As a result, PSSI officially stopped all competitions in 2015 season after PSSI's Executive Committee meeting on 2 May 2015 called the government intervention as a
force majeure. The government intervention also led FIFA to punish Indonesia with a one-year suspension of all association football activities as the world body considered overbearing state involvement in footballing matters as a violation against its member PSSI. During the suspension, some tournaments were made to fill the vacuum, starting with the
2015 President's Cup, in which Persib came out as champions, until the Bhayangkara Cup closed the series of unrecognized tournaments. On 13 May 2016, FIFA officially ended the suspension, following the revocation of the decree by the Indonesian minister on 10 May 2016. A long-term tournament with full competition format,
Indonesia Soccer Championship (ISC), emerged shortly thereafter. The
2016 season saw Persipura take the title.
First name change In 2017, the top-flight football competition was rebranded under a new official name,
Liga 1. The name changes also applied to
Premier Division (became
Liga 2) and
Liga Nusantara (became
Liga 3).
Bhayangkara was the first champion of the competition under the first new name in the
2017 season. True to the controversial nature of Indonesian football, the crowning triggered flak from fans. Bhayangkara, a team managed by the
Indonesian Police that had no fanbase, won due to head-to-head advantage against
Bali United, a team with rapidly growing support due to its modern professional management, after both teams had the same points at the end of the season. Bali United finally won the title in
2019, following Persija in
2018. The
2020 season was canceled as the
COVID-19 pandemic continued to hit Indonesia. The
2021–22 season used the
bubble-to-bubble system so that it would not become a new cluster for the spread of
COVID-19. The
2022–23 season was marred by the
Kanjuruhan Stadium disaster, and it finished without relegation. The
2023–24 season introduced the championship play-offs after the regular season. The
2024–25 season saw at least one team represent each
island for the first time.
Second name change In 2025, the top-flight football competition was rebranded under a new name for a second time,
Super League. The name change also applied to Liga 2 (became the
Championship). On 15 January 2026, due to the change of BRI's logo as the main sponsorship of the competition to commemorate its 130th anniversary on 16 December 2025, the Super League logo underwent a slight adjustment, where the 2020 BRI logo was replaced with the new BRI logo, and the official colors of the competition adopted the colors "Nusantara Blue" and "Cakrawala Blue" which aimed to align them with BRI's new corporate identity. The rebranding took effect on-air beginning at week 18 of the competition on 23 January 2026. == Competition format ==