The history of the National Football League (NFL) can be traced back to the earliest 20th century during the British colonization of Singapore, whereby the Singapore Amateur Football Association (SAFA) was formed in year of 1892. SAFA was responsible for organising the top tier football leagues in Singapore with NFL as the top tier football league from early 20th century, until the formation of FAS Premier League in 1988. It was previously made up of Division 1, Division 2 and Division 3, with the bottom team of Division 3 being relegated to the FAS Island Wide League.
As of 2018, it makes up provisional tiers 2 and 3, behind the professional Singapore Premier League, with rules of promotion and relegation applied for teams in NFL Division One and NFL Division Two. Teams play two-round league home-away format. League features promotions and relegations for all the teams in both divisions, where the top two teams of a division will be promoted to the upper division, and the last two relegated to the lower division.
In 2020, the NFL was renamed as Singapore Football League (SFL).[3] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, the first season of SFL started in 2022.[3]
In 1975, the Football Association of Singapore revamped the existing league structure involving 118 teams into a two-tier league system.[19]
For the 1987 season, the teams play each other once in a league format. The top eight placed teams in the league progressed to a knock-out stage to determine the champions.[20] League stage winners Tiong Bahru defeated 4th-placed Tampines Rovers 2–1 in the final to clinch the championship.[21][22][23] The top tier of the football league system was replaced by the FAS Premier League from 1988, the S.League from 1996 and the Singapore Premier League from 2018.