Super League Greece Explained: Format, Play-Offs, Play-Outs and How to Read a Table With Three Different Rules

Super League Greece is the top tier of Greek football. Fourteen clubs play 26 matches, then divide into three groups for six or ten more matches, carrying their points over in full in two groups and halved in the third. RubiScore lists the fixtures and results behind each stage, so a table can be checked against its matches.

This explainer covers the 2026-27 format, points and tie-breaks, promotion and relegation, European places, a short history and a method for reading the table. Greek fixtures, results and standings are available at https://rubiscore.com.

What Is Super League Greece?

The league's official name is A1 Ethniki Katigoria, and it is sponsored as the Stoiximan Super League. The clubs' own partnership, the Super League, was formed on 16 July 2006. The first nationwide Greek league, then called the Alpha Ethniki, started on 25 October 1959 with 16 clubs, and Panathinaikos won it.

The 2026-27 season is scheduled from 22 August 2026 to 23 May 2027. AEK Athens are the defending champions after winning a 14th title in 2025-26. Iraklis and Kalamata replace the relegated AEL and Panserraikos. The other twelve clubs are AEK Athens, A.E. Kifisia, Aris, Asteras Tripolis, Atromitos, Levadiakos, OFI, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, Panetolikos, PAOK and Volos.

How Does a 2026-27 Season Work?

The season has two phases, and the second is where Greece differs from a plain home-and-away league:

• Phase 1, the regular season: 26 matchdays in two rounds of 13. Every club meets every other club twice, home and away. The winter break begins on 21 December 2026 and the phase ends on 21 March 2027.
• Championship play-offs (places 1 to 4): the top four meet twice, six matches each, and keep their regular-season points in full. The table decides the champion and the order of the top-four European places.
• Europe play-offs (places 5 to 8): a six-match mini-league in which clubs start with half of their regular-season points, rounded up. The prize is the last Conference League place, and it exists only if the Greek Cup winner finishes in the league's top four.
• Relegation play-outs (places 9 to 14): the bottom six meet twice, ten matches each, with points carried over in full. The bottom two go down to Super League 2.

Phase 2 is expected to begin on 3 April 2027 and to end on 23 May 2027 with the last play-out matchday. The same structure ran in 2024-25 and 2025-26 and is repeated this season.

The format is recent. In 2023-24 the league used a top-six play-off of ten matches and a bottom-eight play-out of seven, both with full points. Figures from before 2024 therefore describe a different competition.

How Do Points and Tie-Breaks Work?

A win earns three points and a draw one. In the regular season, ties are broken in the order listed for 2026-27: points, head-to-head points, head-to-head goal difference, overall goal difference, goals scored, total wins, away goals scored and away wins.

In phase 2 the order is shorter: points, head-to-head points, head-to-head goal difference, then regular-season position. The head-to-head figures count regular-season and phase-2 meetings together. Overall goal difference is not used.

A real case from 2025-26 shows the effect. Aris and Levadiakos both finished the Europe play-offs on 31 points. Aris ranked fifth on head-to-head points, six to three, even though Levadiakos had the better overall goal difference, +16 against +2.

Who Is Promoted, Relegated and Sent to Europe?

• Relegation: two clubs. In 2025-26 AEL and Panserraikos finished 13th and 14th in the play-outs, on 30 and 29 points.
• Promotion: Super League 2 is a single 16-club league of 30 matches in 2026-27, with no play-offs or play-outs. The top two are promoted and the bottom four drop to Gamma Ethniki. Reserve sides such as PAOK B and Olympiacos B can be relegated but not promoted.
• Europe: under the 2025-26 allocation the champion and runner-up entered Champions League qualifying, and the Greek Cup winner earned a Europa League place. AEK Athens entered the Champions League play-off round, Olympiacos the third qualifying round after UEFA's access list was rebalanced, PAOK Europa League qualifying and Panathinaikos Conference League qualifying. OFI won the Cup from outside the top four.

The number of Greek places and the entry rounds for 2027-28 depend on UEFA's rankings, so they should be checked rather than assumed.

Which Clubs Have Won the Greek Championship?

Six clubs have won it. The RSSSF list counts 90 titles since 1927-28: Olympiacos 48, Panathinaikos 20, AEK Athens 14, PAOK 4, Aris 3 and AEL 1. The count includes seasons played as regional leagues with play-offs before the national league began in 1959-60.

Olympiacos won seven titles in a row twice, from 1996-97 to 2002-03 and from 2010-11 to 2016-17. In the 20 seasons since the Super League was formed, Olympiacos won 14 titles, AEK Athens three, PAOK two and Panathinaikos one. The most recent winners are Olympiacos in 2024-25 and AEK Athens in 2025-26.

How Do You Read the Table Before the Split?

The 26-match table is a sorting device more than a verdict. It does not decide the title. It decides which of three competitions a club enters, and only two lines matter:

• The line between 4th and 5th: the top four play for the title with full points. In 2025-26 the regular season ended with AEK Athens on 60, Olympiacos on 58, PAOK on 57 and Panathinaikos on 49. Levadiakos, in fifth, had 42.
• The line between 8th and 9th: it separates a group with half points and no relegation from a group with full points and two relegations. Aris finished 8th on 30 points and Atromitos 9th on 29. One point decided who faced the drop.

Three cautions apply to any table taken before matchday 26:

• Matches played vary. Clubs can postpone fixtures, for example around European qualifiers. Panathinaikos used its one postponement right for 2025-26 in August 2025. Compare points per match, not raw points.
• Opponents differ by matchday. Each round of 13 is drawn separately, and in 2025-26 the second round did not mirror the first. After matchday 13 every club has met every other once, if nothing was postponed, which is the first fair comparison.
• Top-four gaps carry over in full. In 2025-26 the top three were within three points at the split and kept every point, so the race was still open when the six play-off matches began.

Why Are Post-Split Points Not Comparable Across Groups?

After the split, a points total belongs to its group. Four things differ between groups:

• Matches played: clubs in the top two groups play 32 league matches, and play-out clubs play 36.
• Carry-over: full for places 1 to 4 and 9 to 14, halved and rounded up for places 5 to 8.
• Opposition: each club faces only the other clubs in its group.
• Stakes: the title, a European place or survival. In 2025-26 the Europe group had no prize left to win: OFI won the Cup from outside the top four and the fourth-placed club took the Conference League place. The six matches were still played.

The 2025-26 final tables show how far the gap goes. Atromitos, 9th, finished on 46 points. Aris, 5th, finished on 31, and Olympiacos, 2nd, on 66. The final order is by group first and points second.

A quick diagnostic helps: multiply wins by three and add draws. In the championship and relegation groups the result equals the published points, as with Atromitos, whose 12 wins and 10 draws give 46. In the Europe group it does not. Aris had 11 wins and 13 draws, which gives 46 against 31 published, because half of the regular-season points were removed. Platforms such as RubiScore present tables beside the fixtures and results behind them, so the check takes a minute.

The split also moves clubs:

• Championship group: the order held. AEK Athens finished on 72, Olympiacos on 66, PAOK on 64 and Panathinaikos on 52.
• Europe group: halving cut a 12-point gap between Levadiakos (42) and Aris (30) to six. Aris added 16 points from six matches and Levadiakos added 10, so both finished on 31.
• Relegation group: Asteras Tripolis began 14th on 17 points and finished 11th on 36. AEL began 12th on 23 and finished 13th, relegated with Panserraikos.

A Checklist for Reading Super League Greece Tables

• Step 1: Identify the phase, whether the regular season or one of the three groups.
• Step 2: Check the carry-over rule: full for the top four and bottom six, halved for places 5 to 8.
• Step 3: Compare matches played and use points per match while postponed games are outstanding.
• Step 4: Run the wins-times-three-plus-draws check on any phase-2 table.
• Step 5: Apply phase-2 tie-breaks in order: head-to-head, then regular-season position, not goal difference.
• Step 6: Ask what the group is playing for, because a Europe group can finish with no European place at stake.
• Step 7: Compare seasons only within the same format, since 2024-25 changed the structure.

Some limits apply. The phase-2 dates for 2026-27 are scheduled, not guaranteed, and the league's own website, slgr.gr, publishes the current rules and tables. European places for 2027-28 depend on UEFA's ranking, and title counts follow RSSSF, which includes pre-1959 regional championships. Read with those limits in mind, the three-way split is easier to follow than it first looks.