Including football, all sports in North Korea were on an amateur basis, with competitions called Technical Innovation Contests[1] (Chosŏn'gŭl: 기술혁신경기대회; Hanja: 技術革新競技大會) being held several times a year In football, First Technical Innovation Contests was held In 1960.
The league was the subject of the 1978 sport drama called Centre Forward. The movie was directed by Kil-in Kim and Chong-song Pak and starred In-son Cha.
In 2010, football's National Championship was renamed Top Class Football League or Highest Class Football League[2] (Chosŏn'gŭl: 최상급축구련맹전; Hanja: 最上級蹴球聯盟戰).[3][4]
October 2017, after which Highest Class Football League was replaced by the DPR Korea Premier Football League (Chosŏn'gŭl: 조선민주주의인민공화국 1부류축구련맹전; Hanja: 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國 一部流蹴球聯盟戰) held in the home-and-away round-robin system used in most other countries.
In October 2016, South Korean Newspaper reported, AFC said "In 2017, North Korea have a plan to create a new football league system which operates 3 divisions."[7][8]
Note: North Korea is a reclusive and closed country so it is difficult to obtain the information about whole changes or detailed league system information.
