American Football Association of Finland

American Football Association of Finland (Finnish: Suomen Amerikkalaisen Jalkapallon Liitto, abbreviated SAJL) is the national governing body of American football in Finland. It was founded in 1979 and it is founding member of both of European Federation of American Football, EFAF and International Federation of American Football, IFAF. Since 2000 American football has grown steadily. Though it can be considered to be one of Finland's smaller sports, in 2006 there were 27 clubs playing the sport with over 100 teams and over 1400 players. In 2012, the association's competitions fielded over 150 teams with more than 2200 licensed players

President of American Football Association of Finland is Roope Noronen.

The sport, like it is in the vast majority of other sports, is club-based in FInland. In 2013, the association has a total of 36 active member clubs. The largest number of clubs (5) come from capital city Helsinki with 3 more hailing from the metropolitan area or neighboring municipalities.Besides Helsinki, Jyväskylä is the only other city that host two or more clubs (Jaguaarit, men's and junior teams and Jaguars, a club fielding women's team)

In Finland American football is played in men's, women's and youth leagues.

Men's teams are divided into four divisions with provisional promotion and relegation rules.

The two highest tiers have a league license system in place, hence no promotion and relegation between these and 2nd division is ever based on competitive results alone. In addition to competitive status teams have to reach a certain level when it comes to economics and organisational structure. They must meet a number of standards in different fields, such as the amount of licensed players, number of junior teams etc. The criteria are the same with Maple League and 1st division licenses, however for League teams the standards are higher.

After each season teams must apply for a place in the Maple League and the 1st division. Teams eligible to apply for a spot in Maple League are the ones ranked from #1 to #10 in national ranking, including Maple League teams from previous season plus 2–4 best teams from the 1st division, depending on the number of Maple League teams the previous year. Teams eligible for 1st division are the teams from the previous year and the two best from 2nd division. SAJL checks the applications and grants licenses according to their seed in the previous season. In seeding the teams the winner of Spaghetti Bowl overtakes the last team from Maple League and the winner of 2nd division is favoured before the last teams from 1st division.

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