page_title: Austrian Football Bundesliga
section_title: 1945–1974
hierarchical_section_title: Austrian Football Bundesliga / History / 1945–1974
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Panoramafoto der UPC-Arena in Graz English: Panorama of UPC-Arena in Graz
context_page_description: The Austrian Football Bundesliga is the highest-ranking national league club competition in Austrian football. The competition decides the Austrian national football champions, as well the country's entrants for the various European cups run by UEFA. Since Austria stayed in sixteenth place in the UEFA association coefficient rankings at the end of the 2015–16 season, the league gained its first spot for the UEFA Champions League.
  The Austrian Bundesliga, which began in the 1974–75 season, has been a separate registered association since 1 December 1991. It has been most won by the two Viennese giants Austria Wien, who were national champions 24 times, and Rapid Wien, who won the national title 32 times. Rapid’s last title was in the 2007–08 season. The current champions are Red Bull Salzburg. Phillip Thonhauser is president of the Austrian Bundesliga.
  The Austrian Football Bundesliga is currently known as Tipico Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons.
context_section_description: The league returned to a Vienna-only format in 1945, briefly named 1. Klasse once more before changing to just Liga in 1946.
  Only upon the introduction of the all-Austrian Staatsliga A in 1949 did teams from the whole federal territory finally play for the Austrian Championship. However, the road to organising the Staatsliga proved difficult. A conflict between the representatives of the amateur and the professional aspects of the sport led to the separation of the Viennese league from the football federation, and to the establishment of its own competition on 30 June 1949. At the statutory Presidential Election Council of the Austrian Football Association only a few days later a surprising turn took place – upon the request of Lower Austria, the introduction of the Staatsliga was finally and unanimously confirmed. The organization was in the hands of the Fußballstaatsliga Österreich, created for this purpose. A Staatsliga B, the second division of national league football, was formed in 1950. This league, however, was disbanded again in 1959, whereby the Staatsliga A dropped the A from its name, the need for differentiating having been gone.
  In 1965, however, the Austrian Football Association again took over the organization of the top division, with the (second) introduction of the Nationalliga.
  On 21 April 1974, against the vote of the Vorarlberg association, the introduction of the Bundesliga was decided. The Nationalliga remained as the second division, for now.
caption: UPC-Arena, Sturm Graz
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