User:Huligan0/2011–12 Swiss 1. Liga

The '''2011–12 Swiss 1. Liga''' was the final season of this league as the third highest tier in the Swiss football league system. From next season it would become the fourth highest tier. The 1. Liga is and remains the highest tier in Swiss amateur football, but many teams at that time had professional or semi-professional players.

Format
The 1. Liga in the 2011–12 season was divided into three regional groups, each with 16 teams. Within each group, the teams would play a double round-robin to decide their positions in the league. Due to the creation of the 1. Liga Promotion that was due to commence the following year, this season would see the number of teams in the groups reduced from 16 to 14 and it would be renamed as 1. Liga Classic. The new Promotion League would serve as the semi-professional link to amateur football. Six clubs could achieve promotion to the new third division, if they had applied for the semi-professional status. Due to the bankrupcy of Xamax in January 2012 it resulted that seven clubs were promoted. The four best U-21 teams would recieve a wild card and advance as well. This reconstruction was done to decrease the competitive gap between the professional two top tiers and the amateur leagues.