Series
A Series in Hattrick consists of eight teams, which play against each other two times each season, according to a pre-set schedule.
There are different league levels, or divisions, and, for each Hattrick country, a certain number of levels, depending on the number of users in that specific country.
Numbers of series
Each series belongs to a specific league level. Every country has a top series, then four division series and then sixteen more series under this. Bigger countries (more than 168 users) may have more leagues, according to the scheme in table below.
| League level | Number of series | Teams in series | Total users (max) |
| 1 | 1 | 8 | 8 |
| 2 | 4 | 32 | 40 |
| 3 | 16 | 128 | 168 |
|
| |||
| 4 | 64 | 512 | 680 |
| 5 | 256 | 2 048 | 2 728 |
| 6 | 1024 | 8 192 | 10 920 |
| 7 | 1024 | 8 192 | 19 112 |
| 8 | 2048 | 16 384 | 35 496 |
| 9 | 2048 | 16 384 | 51 880 |
| 10 | 4096 | 32 768 | 84 648 |
| 11+ | 4096 | +32 768 | |
Note that Sweden is the only Country where the second division is named I, third division is II and so on.
Every division further from the top is 4 times as big as the one above. From level 6 on, divisions are divided in odd and even: even divisions double in number, but odd divisions are the same than division above. In other words, from division 6 down, divisions wil alternating have the same and double size.
Promotion and Relegation
Teams in 5th and 6th place will always play demotion qualifiers. According to last changes, in the six highest divisions, promotions and relegations all go in the same way.
After the 14 series matches, the promotion ranking, a list of all champions in a division, is created, assigning spots for direct promotion: 2 for II division, 8 for III, 32 for IV, 128 for V, 512 for VI, replacing the 7th and 8th placed teams in the higher division. The team which has gained the most points in his league level is positioned first in this ranking, the champion with the least points is placed last in list. When teams have the same number of points, the tiebraker is goal difference, next goals scored and eventually a draw.
The other half of the champions don't promote directly and they play a qualification match against the numbers 5 and 6 of the division above. The champion which is ranked highest in the bottom half of the promotion ranking will play the number 6 with the least point. The lowest ranked champion will play the highest ranked number 5. The teams from the higher division (5th and 6th placed) play at home.
Out of 4 champions, one replaces a number 7 directly, one a number 8. Another champion will play a qualification match against a number 5 and one champion will play a number 6 in order to try to earn promotion.
| Some examples | ||
|---|---|---|
| Higher division | Direct/indirect | Lower division |
| Best ranked no. 5 | plays | Worst ranked no. 1 |
| 2nd ranked no. 5 | plays | 2nd worst ranked no. 1 |
| Worst ranked no. 5 | plays | No. 1 |
| Best ranked no. 6 | plays | No. 1 |
| Worst ranked no. 6 | plays | Best ranked no. 1 of the bottom half |
| Best ranked no. 7 | replaced by | Best ranked no. 1 |
| Worst ranked no. 7 | replaced by | No. 1 |
| Best ranked no. 8 | replaced by | No. 1 |
| Worst ranked no. 8 | replaced by | Worst ranked no. 1 of the top half |
In the lower divisions (League Level 6 and below), in addition to the direct promotion and demotion slots, qualifiers are played too. In detail:
- In Level 7: Teams in 3rd and 4th place play promotion qualifiers against teams in 5th and 6th place in level 6.
- In Level 8: The team in 2nd place play a promotion qualifier against the teams in 5th and 6th place in level 7.
- Level 9 and odd -> Same rules as in Level 7.
- Level 10 and even -> Same rules as in Level 8. And so on.
A number of "Lucky Losers" from the teams that lost qualification games is also drawn to get promoted. The Lucky Loser draw takes place the Monday after the qualifiers and it will not be possible to opt out of this draw.
Off-season Bot removal
Bot teams are removed at the end of the season, additional promotion slots may open up.
| It´s Lonely at the Bottom | 2008-07-15 (an edit of the announcement was made a while later exchanging the italic sentence for the bold one) |
| We have started distributing rookie teams into the league system in a new way. We hope to improve a few things with this change. One is to make sure teams in lower divisions are not left "alone", without human competition. Two, to make sure that new teams get a more balanced competition (not too hard, and not too easy). The main change will be that rather than filling series up completely, in numerical order, the Hattrick Football Association will start with series that have only one human-owned team. When these have at least four human-owned teams, series with two active teams will follow, and so on. Not packing human-owned teams too tighly will make promotion easier for new, active human owners. Before next season, we will make it impossible for bot teams to promote, instead giving these places to the best available human-owned teams. Later on we aim to reduce the possibility for bot teams to promote at the expense of human controlled teams | |
The rules, in order, for the distribution of teams is as follows :
- Series in the second lowest division with at least one team will get new users up to the amount of four teams starting with the ones with fewest active users.
- Series in the second lowest division without any teams will get new users up to the amount of four teams.
- Series in the lowest division with at least one team will get new users up to the amount of four teams starting with the ones with fewest active users.
- Series in the lowest division without any teams will get new users up to the amount of four teams.
- Series in the lowest division is filled up to full with every series first getting up to 5 teams, every series getting up to 6 teams etc.
Series by Nation
Europe
Africa
America
Asia
Oceania
 Oceania, Category:Oceanian Clubs |
Level restructuring
The league structure was changed in order to have less divisions, and to solve the bot problem found in many of the larger countries, notably Spain. Before season 28 (April 2006), it looked like this:
| Old League level | Number of series |
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 4 |
| 3 | 16 |
| 4 | 64 |
| 5 | 256 |
| 6 | 1024 |
| 7+ | +1024 |
