New Cambodian Premier League set to revolutionise football in the country

A new footbal league, the Cambodian Premier League (CPL) has been established to take the place of the metfone C-League. The C-league was administered under the auspices of the Cambodia National Competitions Committee (CNCC) which operates under the umbrella of the Footbal Federation of Cambodia (FFC).

The CPL is a completely private enterprise organized to improve both the quality of the top-flight tier of Cambodian football and its finances.

Khmer Nights sat down with CPL CEO Satoshi Saito, formerly of FC Barcelona, to discuss what fans can expect from the new league.

What is the history of football in Cambodia?

Football initially became popular in Cambodia during French colonial times. The Khmer national side would not play their first match though until post independence, a game that resulted in a narrow 3-2 loss against Malaya.

The game would take a back seat over the coming decades as the country was gripped in civil war, with one exception. That being, Cambodia’s historic hosting of the match where North Korea qualified for the 1966 World Cup. To read about the infamous 1966 games click here.

Football enjoyed something of a renaissance during the Lon Nol years, with Cambodia finishing 4th in the AFC Cup before everything ground to a halt during the time of Democratic Kampuchea.

Football leagues in Cambodia

With the establishment of the Peoples Republic of Kampuchea a national championship was first arranged in 1982. It was largely based around the Soviet model of “officially” amateur teams formed by ministries, the police, army and other state owned enterprises. 

Perversely, because the UN recognised the Khmer Rouge government in exile, the national team were not able to play during this period. Following the peace accord the league would morph into a semi-professional championship but would still largely be dominated by teams based around state entities. This remained the status quo until the advent of the Cambodian League, or C-League.

The first “professional” league in Cambodia

Following a two year hiatus in 2003 and 2004, football within the Kingdom underwent a major restructure, with the aim being to improve the overall standards of the sport. This brought about the C-League, which ultimtately rebranded as the metfone Cambodian League, courtesy of a corporate sponsorship of the league’s name. 

Over the 17 years of the league’s existence the standard of professionalism would improve with major clubs such as Phnom Penh Crown being formed. Additionally, clubs sponsored by corporate entities such as Nagaworld, SMART, Cambodian Airways and the Prince Group entered the fray. The league was able to bring in enough money for most of its clubs to sign some marquee foreign players. These players were generally journeymen footballers or ones well past their prime, rather than stars at the height of their game.

Despite these efforts the league was very unbalanced in terms of talent, with top clubs rolling up remarkably one-sided victories over the rest of the teams. Additionally, a number of the league’s teams were not professional, with Soviet style “works” teams like Électricité du Cambodge FC (EDCFC) and the National Police side still participating.

In the end though, the death knell was the league failing to deliver crowds as what the fans wanted, more competitive competition and an improvement in the national team continued to go unaddressed. Cambodia currently ranks 171st in the world, which for context puts them sandwiched between Belize and Mauritania in the global rankings. 

The birth of the Cambodian Premier League

In October of 2021 Satoshi Saito, the former international marketer for FC Barcelona of La Liga, was announced as the CEO of the CPL. He was hired with a mandate to tun around football in Cambodia. 

Since Saito’s appointment, it was been announced that the league would feature two divisions, instead of the current one. The top tier is to be made up of 8 teams, with another 12 making up the second tier. The designation of tier status was based on the previous season’s top 8 clubs joining the top-flight and the remaining teams applying to join tier 2. To that end we currently do not know for now which clubs will be represented in the second tier. 

One of the biggest changes for inclusion is that clubs will have to go through a licensing procedure in order to play in the top-flight with certain criteria needing to be met. According to Satoshi Saito, the standard is as follows; “Clubs will need to reach a basic score of 70, which is judged on various criteria, such as legal status, financial solvency, infrastructure, as well as quality of stadium”.

Cambodian stadiums currently lack sufficient floodlights, which means many games have to be played in the blistering mid-day heat, something Satoshi acknowledged as an area that needed improvement. 

What changes will will see in Cambodian Football for 2022?

Rome was not built in a day, so initially not much is likely to change. The league will now feature 8 instead of 13 teams, which will at the very least improve the quality of games. Each team will also have to play at least two under-23 players at all times. The later change has proved controversial with some managers, but Satoshi was quick to defend the action stating, “One of our main remits is to see the improvement of the national team and the development of young players. We studied various methods in other leagues and feel that this model works the best with regards to developing players for the national team”.

The other major change is that whoever wins the second tier will not automatically be promoted. Instead they will need to successfuly apply for a license to meet the established criteria for tier one membership. They must also be private entities in order to qualify. This effectively could preclude clubs such as EDC FC and National Police from ascension to tier 1 although Satoshi has added that state organisations can still sponsor or own clubs through a subsidiary. The club itself though would need to be represented by a registered company.  

Another noteworthy absence, for now at least, is the lack of a lead sponsor given mettfone’s no longer holding naming rights for the league. That price for those rights has been set at $2 million, with lower levels of official sponsorship available at to $500k, $200k and $100k. And while these fees sound high, it should be kept in mind that Cambodian matches reached an estimated viewership of 13 million people last year, with an average audience of around 500,000 each weekend. 

Our takeaway? A solid start to the rejeuvenation of Cambodian football

if the league succeeds in improving the game, these are numbers that will grow as time goes on. And with that growth in mind, the financial foundation that corporate sponsorships like naming rights can provide looks to be not only possible, but a wise marketing investment by private enterprises looking for an effective advertising platform. It’s the roll of the dice the CPL is counting on but one that is sound in theory and grounded in historical practice around the professional sports world.