Peruvian Segunda División

The Peruvian Second Division (Peruvian Segunda División in Spanish), officially known as the Liga 2 (Ligue 2) of Peru is the second-highest division in the Peruvian football league system. It is a professional and promotional division organized by the Peruvian Football Federation. The winners and Ligiulla winners get promoted to the Peruvian Primera División. The bottom two teams get relegated to the Copa Perú, which will be later changed to relegation to the Peruvian Tercera División. After years of changing numbers of clubs, as of 2024 the league includes 18 clubs.

History
Before the current Liga 2, there was the Peruvian Segunda División, which was the second division of Peruvian football from 1912 to 1925. It allowed promotion to the Peruvian Primera Division for the starting seasons. It was not a professional tournament. In the inaugural 1912 season, the Peruvian Segunda Division and Primera Division were put together with 8 teams each. It was dissolved in 1925 after the Peruvian Football Federation was formed. The tournament was restarted in 1926, under the organization of the Peruvian Football Federation, with the name of "Intermediate Tournament", the first champion was Association Alianza, after that in 1935 the championship was renamed "Ascenso División de Honor" where it granted promotion to teams from Lima and Callao, at this stage the most relevant was the championship of 1939 where Alianza Lima won the championship and climbed to the top division. It would later be replaced by the Peruvian Segunda Division, now known as the Liga 2, in 1936. Despite being founded in 1936, the Peruvian Segunda Division did not have its first season up until 1943, where Atlético Telmo Carbajo of Callao won the tournament.

For decades after it was first formed in 1936, only clubs from the Department of Lima participated in the annual tournament where the winner gets promoted to the Copa Perú. From 1988 to 1990, the winner got promoted to the Torneo Metropolitano Regional. It was not until 1992 when Peruvian football federation expanded the tournament to other regions, expanding it to the Department of Ica and Callao with a total of 12 teams.

From 1993 to 1997 the winner was promoted directly to the Primera División. From 1998 it was established that the champion of this tournament would play a revalidation match with the team that finished second to last in the decentralized championship of the same year. In 2002, following the Peruvian Football Federation's policy of increasing the number of teams in the first division, the champion of this tournament was immediately promoted. In 2004 and 2005 the format changed, establishing that the champion and runner-up of the second division would be integrated into Region 4 of the Copa Perú.

In 2006, the Peruvian Segunda Division was moved up to the second tier once again, where the winner gets promotion to the First Division. As a result, the Copa Peru was moved down to the third tier, where is currently stands.It was only in 2006 that it was decided to decentralize this tournament (until then reserved for teams from the Department of Lima and the Constitutional Province of Callao), the championship began to be played with teams from different departments of Peru that obtained the category through a contest called by the Peruvian Football Federation or by relegation from the first division. However, despite the decentralist spirit of this measure (which recently turned this category into a true Peruvian Second Division), some articles were established in the regulations that obliged teams of a certain distance from Lima to pay the tickets of rival teams. It should be said that with this, the duality of promotion to the First Division occurred because the Copa Perú, the traditional amateur football tournament, was also of a national nature, a situation that does not happen in any country worldwide and where it was seen that the Second Division should remain as the only way to promotion to the First Division. However, while it was nominally Second Professional, it was officially promotional. In 2013, the tournament was expanded from 12 to 14 teams as a plan to make it more competitive. In the same decade, many current giants of Peru such as Sport Boys, Universidad César Vallejo and others obtained promotion to the Liga 1, where some still stand to this day. Multiple other expansions and reductions of teams were made and the league was originally set to be 16 teams but reduced to 14 because of financial issues.

In 2019, the Peruvian Football Federation announced the creation of the Peruvian Tercera División, which will replace the Copa Peru as the third tier, moving the Copa Peru down to the fourth tier. This had the relegated teams of the Liga 2 move down to the Liga 3. Liga 2 teams also participate in the national tournament, the Copa Bicentenario along with the teams from the Liga 1. For the 2024 season, the Liga 2 was expanded to 18 teams, the same as the Liga 1. A new format was made which would split the 18 teams into two groups known as the Zona Norte and Zona Sur, based on the northern and southern locations of the clubs. The top six teams in each group would advance to the group stage, with the other three being placed in the relegation group. Two teams will be promoted to the First Division and two relegated to the newly created Third Division.

Competition format and sponsorship
Since 2006, the winner of the tournament is promoted to the First Division, while the last two teams are relegated from the tournament to the Departamental Stage of the Copa Perú. Their places are taken by the two relegated clubs from the First Division, and the team that finishes second place in the Copa Perú. From 2018 to 2023, the Liga 2 would adopt a new format, where the top ranking team throughout the whole season would win the tournament and be automatically promoted, and the next six teams compete in a bracket Ligiulla stage, with the winner also being promoted.

After the expansion to 18 for the 2024 season, the format was changed to multiple stages. The first stage known as the Regional Stage would split the 18 teams into two groups of nine, called the Zona Norte and Zona Sur, based in the north and the south. The top six of each zone would advance to the Group Stage and bottom three into the Relegation Group. In the Group Stage, the 12 teams will be split into two groups of six with the top three teams advance to the Ligiulla stage, with the top team of each group in the semi-finals and rest in quarter-finals. The finalists of the Ligiulla stage will be promoted to the first division and the winners winning the league. In the relegation group, each team will play in a round-robin format. The lowest ranked team of each group gets relegated to the Liga 3.

Sponsorship
The Peruvian Second Division is sponsored by Movistar's Gol Perú, which has exclusive broadcasting rights. L1MAX, Nativa TV and FPF Play also broadcast the tournament.

Criticisms
The Segunda División has received numerous criticisms, chiefly due to the lack of stability in the process of competition and promotion, and the lack of professionalism.

Team count
The Segunda División has changed the number of teams that operate in the league several times. Over the course of 74 years, the Segunda has had as few as four teams and as many as 16. The early Segunda División were played with an average number of teams ranging from 4 to 10. Prior to the current 12-club Segunda División, during the 2000s, the team count continued to fluctuate between 10, 12, 14, 16 and even a surprising 13. For example, 12 teams competed in 2009, 10 competed in 2008, 11 competed in 2007, and 12 teams competed from 2004 to 2006. The over-all goal of the organization is to have a stable league of 16 teams. It would be expanded to 18 in 2024.

Artificial turf
Several stadiums used in the second division have artificial grass installed for the so-called massification of sport. Most stadiums in Peru are owned by the IPD (Instituto Peruano del Deporte), which is the state group responsible for supporting the use of artificial turf. This has been severely criticized by top division teams and the media. At first, these artificial turfs were installed for the 2005 FIFA U-17 World Cup; however, more artificial turf was installed in other stadiums after the U-17 World Cup concluded. These turfs are criticized for having a negative influence on the game and for the injuries which they cause to players.

Clubs
Currently, 16 clubs participate in Liga 2. There are currently no teams from the Lima Metropolitan area with all clubs representing cities from the country's interior. The number of clubs has fluctuated season by season from 10 to 18 teams participating in the tournament.

Ciclista Lima, Unión Huaral, Deportivo Municipal, Guardia Republicana, Mariscal Sucre, Unión Callao, Telmo Carbajo, Sport Boys, Unión Gonzáles Prada, and Carlos Concha trail behind with 3 titles. Universidad César Vallejo, Total Clean, Cobresol, José Gálvez, Los Caimanes, and Comerciantes Unidos are the only clubs outside the metropolitan area of Lima to have won a Segunda Division championship. In addition, Alianza Lima, Atlético Chalaco, Centro Iqueño, Defensor Lima, Municipal, Mariscal Sucre, San Agustín, Sport Boys, and Unión Huaral are the only teams that have been champions of the First and Second Division.

Since the Second Division became a nation-wide tournament in 2006, 20 of the 25 regions have had representative teams in the Segunda División/Liga 2. The only five regions that have never had a representative are Amazonas, Huancavelica, Madre de Dios, Pasco, and Tumbes.

Champions
Peruvian Segunda División had amateur status since its foundation until 1987. In the course of this era, Telmo Carbajo, Ciclista Lima, Unión Callao, Carlos Concha and Mariscal Sucre shared the most titles. The first run from 1943 to 1987 featured clubs only from Lima and Callao. In 1988 the league obtained professional status and in 2006 expanded the league to the entire nation, beginning the Segunda División Nacional.



Amateur league (1943–1987)
Tournament names:
 * 1943–1972: "Segunda División Metropolitana"
 * 1983: "Segunda División Experimental"
 * 1984–1987: "Región IX"

Professional league (1988–present)
Tournament names:
 * 1988–2005: "Segunda División Metropolitana"
 * 2005–2018: "Segunda División Nacional"
 * 2019–present: "Liga 2"