Editing Maximusian League of Association Football (section)

== History ==
Semi-professional football clubs have existed in Libertas Omnium Maximus since at least the 1920s. In 1936, the Maximusian Football Association was formed as a decentralized federation to govern the most prestigious of these smaller, regional leagues, but the MFA was unable to generate meaningful viewership and, by the early 1940s, a mass exodus of players to better funded foreign leagues threatened to sink professional football in the Maximusian Republic. In 1956, the Maximusian League of Association Football was founded in [[Perra]] to professionalize the sport and unite disparate regional leagues and tournaments under one organization, originally organized into two tiers of 16 teams each. Initially, the league was much more popular in the nation's north and central regions, but gradually spread south. Although growth for the MLAF was extremely slow during the 1960s, largely due to the [[Great War|massive global conflict]] which threatened the Maximusian Republic's very existence for a number of years and necessitated the drafting of many football players, the 1970s saw the league finally begin to garner significant popularity. In 1979, a third division with twenty teams was added and, for the first time, the league began heavily recruiting internationally. In 1988, a post-season tournament was added to the league and the size of all three divisions was standardized to 20 teams per division. 

The 1990s proved to be a watershed decade for the league. In addition to a number of international wins for MLAF clubs, bringing prestige both to the team and to the league, the Maximusian League successfully brokered a number of lucrative sponsorship deals with some of the largest brands in the nation and internationally. Three years, consecutively, in 1996, 1997, and 1998, the final match of the postseason tournament were the most viewed TV broadcast that year. In 1999, the second and third divisions were expanded to 24 and 22 teams, respectively. In 2004, the Maximusian League was expanded to its current format of 22 teams.