Last Thursday, a PFL conference was held in Kyiv, which, among other things, approved the format of the Ukrainian championship in the first and second leagues in the season 2023/24.
Thus, the competition in the first league will be held in the same format as it was last season:
- two groups of 10 teams - group "A" and group "B";
- Each group will have a standard two-round tournament (18 rounds);
- In the second stage, the top 5 teams in Groups A and B would form the "champion group", which would again play a two-round tournament. The remaining competitors will form the group for the right to retain their place in the first league. In the second phase, teams in Group A play exclusively against teams in Group B. Thus, at the second stage, there will be 10 rounds in each group.
According to the results of the competition in the "Champions' Group" the top two teams qualify for the UPL, and the teams that take the 3rd and 4th places will play for the right to join the elite division in the knock-out rounds with 13 and 14 teams of the UPL. The three worst teams in the group for the right to retain their place in the first league (8th, 9th 10th places) will drop to the second league, and the teams that take 6th and 7th places will play the tiebreaker games with the representatives of the second league.
League two will be played in a classic league system - one group of 13 teams in two rounds (in each round some of the teams will remain without a match and will forfeit the round). The winner of league two will advance to league one, and teams two and three will play knockout matches against teams six and seven of the group for relegation in league one.