Liga Pro (Ecuador)

Liga Pro (Ecuador) (LigaPro Serie A) - the top-tier professional club league in Ecuador, organized by LigaPro within the Ecuadorian first-division system in coordination with the Ecuadorian Football Federation. Regulations: under the current competition regulations, 16 clubs play a two-phase season consisting of an initial phase and a final phase, with the initial phase played as a double round-robin home-and-away league (30 matchdays) using a 3-1-0 points system, after which points carry over into the final phase where teams are split into two hexagonals (places 1-6 and 7-12 from the initial table) and a four-team relegation group (places 13-16), each hexagonal is played home-and-away (10 matchdays) and the relegation group is also played home-and-away (6 matchdays), the champion is the club finishing 1st in the first hexagonal, and the bottom two clubs in the relegation group are relegated to Serie B. Tie-breakers for level points are applied in this order: goal difference, goals scored, away goals scored, head-to-head points between the tied clubs, and if still tied a public draw. International competitions: the winner of the initial phase is entitled to the Ecuador 2 berth for the Copa Libertadores, while the national association allocates the remaining CONMEBOL berths based on sporting merit and national competitions, and under the CONMEBOL access list Ecuador typically has four Copa Libertadores berths and four Copa Sudamericana berths, with berths 1-2 entering the Copa Libertadores group stage, berth 3 entering the second qualifying stage, berth 4 entering the first qualifying stage, and Ecuadorian teams entering the Copa Sudamericana from the first stage.