Statistics of Iraqi League in season 1980/1981.
12 teams competed, and Al-Talaba won the championship. Al-Shorta became the third Iraqi club in history to finish an entire Iraqi Premier League season without having lost a single game. Al-Talaba won the league because at the end of the season the IFA held a meeting and decided to award the title to them because they won more games than second-placed Al-Shorta. This rule had never been used before in the Iraqi League and was never used again, which led to many Iraqi football fans claiming that the IFA were biased towards Al-Talaba and changed the rules just so that they could win the title rather than Al-Shorta, who would have won the title if the rules remained the same as they always had been before and always would be in the future because they scored more goals than Al-Talaba.