The Austrian Football Bundesliga ( , "Austrian Football Federal League"), also known as Admiral Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Austrian football league system. The competition decides the Austrian national football champions, as well the country's entrants for the various European cups run by UEFA. Since Austria stayed in sixteenth place in the UEFA association coefficient rankings at the end of the 2015–16 season, the league gained its first spot for the UEFA Champions League for the 2016-2017 season. The Austrian Bundesliga, which began in the 1974–75 season, has been a separate registered association since 1 December 1991. It has been won the most by the two Viennese giants Austria Wien, who were national champions 24 times, and Rapid Wien, who won the national title 32 times. The current champions are Red Bull Salzburg. Phillip Thonhauser is president of the Austrian Bundesliga. The Austrian Football Bundesliga is currently known as Admiral Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons. History 1900–1938 Football has been played in Austria since around 1890. Around the turn of the twentieth century two attempts were made to start a national championship. From 1900 onwards, a cup competition was played in Vienna, the Neues Wiener Tagblatt Pokal. This cup was actually played in league format. The efforts to create a football league succeeded in 1911, with the introduction of the first Austrian football championship. The competition for this championship, the 1. Klasse (First Class), was created and organized by the Niederösterreichischer Fußball-Verband (the Lower Austrian Football Federation), and the participants played for the title of Niederösterreichische Landesmeister (Lower Austrian National Champion). From 1924, the league was considered professional and changed its name to I. Liga (First League). In 1929, an all-Austrian amateur championship was first played, won by Grazer AK. Clubs from the professional league in Vienna were not part of this competition. Teams from the other states of Austria were first allowed to join the highest division with the introduction of the Nationalliga (National League) in the season of 1937–38. 1938–1945 Austria's annexation by Germany in 1938 brought the Austrian Nationalliga to an early end. Numerous teams were disbanded and some players fled out of the country. The Austrian Nationalliga was integrated into the system of the NSRL, the Sports office of the Third Reich as the Gau XVII section under Gaufachwart Hans Janisch. Despised by Nazis as unworthy of a true German, professionalism in