Segunda División de Panamá also known as Liga Prom, is a professional league for association football clubs in Panamá. It is the country's second-tier football competition, contested by 24 clubs with no promotion or relegation. The competition was formed in 2021.
History
ANAPROF ERA
The Anaprof era is remembered for establishing the Primera A branding with a format of two short tournaments per season (Apertura and Clausura), similar to many Latin American championships. Champions teams required promotional playoff games with ANAPROF's (top-tier league) last placed team.
LNA ERA
LNA logo
The Liga Nacional de Ascenso was formed in 2009 to replace the governing body of the league and forced ANAPROF top tier league to accept a direct promotion team. Other important goals were league expansion to 16 teams, later reduced to 14 teams after the 2011-12 season. The league was successful with attendance records since it had several popular teams like Río Abajo FC, C.A. Independiente, SUNTRACS FC and Atlético Nacional. This severely affected ANAPROF and LPF (top-tier league) attendance numbers and reputation.
LPF ERA
The Ascenso LPF (2016–2020) era organised by Panamanian Football Federation was mostly remembered for reducing participating teams to eight and disaffiliating several teams for missing documentation and requirements.
Liga PROM
After Manuel Arias won the Panamanian Football Federation election, the General Board accepted his proposal for a new structure for Panamanian football at all levels starting in 2021; for the second division tier, will have a 24-team league named Liga PROM, with promotion and relegation suspended. It added 12 LPF Under-20 teams, kept 7 remaining Ascenso LPF teams and invited 5 teams.
Teams
The following teams are expected to play in the Liga Prom Apertura 2021 season.
The LPF has been partnered with local cable sports network Cableonda Sports (subsidiary of Tigo Panamá) to broadcast live games on the Cableonda tv cable system. In addition all teams are authorize to produce live streaming broadcasts using YouTube platform with no home or away matches restrictions, however is required to add Liga Prom logo and grant copyright to the LPF organization.