2022 European League of Football season

The league is divided into three conferences, North, Central and South. Each team plays 12 games during the regular season: twice against their conference rivals, and twice against three of the teams from the other conferences. The top team in each conference, as well as the best second-place team, qualify for the playoffs.[4]

On top of the eight inaugural season teams, the league expanded with four new franchises. On September 25, 2021, the Vienna Vikings, Raiders Tirol as well as Rhein Fire were officially introduced as new teams.[5][6][7] On October 15, 2021 the addition of the Istanbul Rams was announced.[8] First, the Rams home field was the Yusuf Ziya Öniş Stadium but was later changed.[9]

Team	City	Conference	Stadium	Capacity	Head coach
Barcelona Dragons	Barcelona/Reus	Southern	Estadi Municipal de Reus	4,700	Andrew Weidinger
Berlin Thunder	Berlin	Northern	Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark	19,708	Johnny Schmuck
Cologne Centurions	Cologne	Southern	Südstadion	11,748	Frank Roser
Frankfurt Galaxy	Frankfurt am Main	Central	Stadion am Bornheimer Hang	12,542	Thomas Kösling
Hamburg Sea Devils	Hamburg	Northern	Stadion Hoheluft	8,000	Charles "Yogi" Jones
Istanbul Rams	Istanbul	Southern	Maltepe Hasan Polat Stadium	5,000	Val Gunn
Leipzig Kings	Leipzig	Northern	Alfred-Kunze-Sportpark	4,999	Fred Armstrong
Panthers Wrocław	Wrocław	Northern	Stadion Olimpijski (Wrocław)	11,000	Jakub Samel
Raiders Tirol	Innsbruck	Central	Tivoli Stadion Tirol	16,008	Kevin Herron
Rhein Fire	Düsseldorf/Duisburg	Southern	Schauinsland-Reisen-Arena	31,514	Jim Tomsula
Stuttgart Surge	Stuttgart	Central	Gazi-Stadion auf der Waldau	11,408	Martin Hanselmann
Vienna Vikings	Vienna	Central	Generali Arena Vienna	17,500	Chris Calaycay

After the inaugural season, in which the ELF mostly used modified NFL rules (with the exception of the overtime rule, which was based on that of college football – but never used during the entire season as no overtime needed to be played), the league announced its first rule change for the second season. The kick-off rule has been modified to increase player safety, and has been taken from the second iteration of the XFL. According to the new rule, teams will now face each other 5 yards apart, and can only start moving after the returner catches the kickoff, or 3 seconds after the ball hits the ground.[14]

After making its ELF debut in the 2021 championship game, Instant Replay will be used for the entirety of the 2022 season.[15] Like in the NFL, every coach has two challenges per half.

All teams are not allowed to start organised team activities before May 1, 2022 with import players and padded training. The league set this rule to ensure competitive balance, in which teams with more funds can pay their import players earlier. Strength and conditioning sessions and individual training are not affected by this rule.

The semi-finals will be played on September 10 and 11, 2022, and the final will be held on September 25, in Klagenfurt, Austria.

In case ties have to be broken, the rules are:[17]

1. Number of wins
2. Total point difference
3. Total points scored
4. Total points scored at away games
5. Coin flip

This is notably different from tiebreakers used in the NFL which take strength of schedule into account or the German Football League which values the head-to-head as the first tiebreaker for teams with the same win–loss record, in part to discourage running up the score.

The league's media partner is ProSiebenSat.1 Media, together with its broadcasting channels ProSieben MAXX and their online-streaming service ran.de, the league-owned service More Than Sports TV in Germany, Esport3 in Catalonia, S Sport in Turkey as well as LIVENow for international streaming. All games are also available worldwide on ELF Gamepass.

• Official website of the European League of Football