Russian Football National League

The Russian Football National League (FNL) (; sometimes named as Second Russian Premier League; complete official name Fonbet-Russian Football Championship among the club teams of FNL, for sponsorship reasons), formerly called Russian First Division (), is the second level of the Russian football league system.
The Russian Professional Football League (PFL) used to run the division. Since 2011, it has been managed by the .
The league consists of 20 clubs. After each season the two top clubs are promoted to the Premier League, and the bottom four clubs are relegated to the Russian Professional Football League. Third and fourth team play in home-and-away promotion play-offs against the 13th and 14th Premier League teams. In case one or more clubs are not licensed to participate for the upcoming season, the teams previously relegated are kept in the league instead, in the order of last season's standings. The reserve squads of the Premier League teams (such as FC Spartak-2 Moscow) are not eligible for promotion, only for relegation.
History.
Due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, all Russian clubs of the former Soviet Top League and Soviet First League unified into the Russian Top Division, which meant that the new second tier of Russian football would remain regionalized. For the first two seasons the second tier competition was conducted in three separate groups formed by geographical region, and in 1994 a single division was formed.