Formerly | Southeast European League of American Football (SELAF) |
---|---|
Sport | American Football |
Founded | 2005 |
Inaugural season | 2006 |
No. of teams | 7 |
Country |
Austria Hungary Serbia Poland Denmark Turkey Formerly: Slovakia Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia Slovenia |
Most recent champion(s) |
(1st title) |
Most titles | Belgrade Vukovi (6 titles) |
TV partner(s) | Sport Klub |
Official website | european-league.com |
The Central European Football League (CEFL) is a regional American football league. Initially, the league was named Southeastern European League of American Football (SELAF), and featured teams from just Serbia and Slovenia, joined by teams from Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland and Denmark in the following seasons.
The league completed its first season in October 2006. Since the 2010 season, the league is played during the spring and summer months. This is in contrast to the first four seasons, when the schedule was played out from spring to fall, with a summer break.
The current champions are the , after beating the Belgrade Vukovi in CEFL Bowl XI 52-49, played in Graz on 3 July 2016.
The season featured a total of five teams: the Belgrade Vukovi, the Kragujevac Wild Boars, the and Sirmium Legionaries from Serbia, and Ljubljana Silverhawks from Slovenia.
The first ever league champions were the Wild Boars who beat the Vukovi 23–12 in SELAF Bowl, played in Belgrade on 8 October 2006.
The second season was already a season of expansion for the league with the two new teams, a top Hungarian team, Budapest Wolves, and CNC Gladiators, then of Austrian Division I, and the Legionaries not returning. For the first time teams were split into two conferences: North and South. North Conference consisted of Gladiators, Silverhawks and Wolves; South Conference consisted of three Serbian teams: Dukes, Vukovi and Wild Boars.
The bowl game was played in Belgrade on 27 October 2007, with the title won by Vukovi, after beating the Wolves 28–27 in a dramatic fashion.
That season was also the first in which the league made it to television: the semifinal and the bowl game were televised on Serbian nationally covered TV Avala.
The league changed its name to Central European Football League and the third season featured three new teams from three different countries: the Bratislava Monarchs from Slovakia, the Budapest Cowboys from Hungary and the from Croatia, while the Wild Boars did not return. The Cowboys and Thunder joined the South Conference, also filling the vacant spot made with the departure of the Wild Boars, while the Monarchs were placed in North Conference.