The history of the
National Football League (NFL) can be traced back to the earliest 20th century during
British colonial rule, whereby the
Singapore Amateur Football Association (SAFA) was formed in year of 1892. SAFA was responsible for organising the top-tier football leagues in Singapore with NFL as the top-tier football league from early 20th century. It was previously made up of Division 1, Division 2 and Division 3, with the bottom team of Division 3 being relegated to the
FAS Island Wide League. In 1975, the
Football Association of Singapore (FAS) revamped the existing league structure involving 118 teams into a two-tier league system. For the 1987 season, the teams play each other once in a league format. The top eight placed teams in the league progressed to a knock-out stage to determine the champions. League stage winners Tiong Bahru defeated 4th-placed Tampines Rovers 2–1 in the final to clinch the championship. The top tier of the football league system was replaced by the
FAS Premier League between 1988 and 1995. In 1996, FAS created the
S.League, a professional league, which was again revamped to the
Singapore Premier League (SPL) in 2018. Since then, the NFL made up provisional tiers 2 and 3, behind the professional SPL, with rules of promotion and relegation applied for teams in NFL Division One and NFL Division Two but not into the SPL. Teams play two-round league home-away format. League features promotions and relegations for all the teams in both divisions, where the top two teams of a division will be promoted to the upper division, and the last two relegated to the lower division. In 2020, the NFL was renamed as the Singapore Football League (SFL). Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, the first season of the revamped SFL was delayed to 2022. ==Division one clubs as of 2025==