The Ukrainian football league system has developed over the years. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, all professional clubs from Ukraine have joined own national football competitions as the Soviet competitions transitioned to Russian. The amateur-level clubs/teams played at Ukrainian republican competitions always. The top two tiers traditionally have a single group with double round robin system. The third tier, while having the same type of competition organization, usually has two groups organized geographically. The depth of the nation league competitions is about three levels. The amateur national competitions, while being mandated to participate before joining professional competitions, are often ignored and many teams on various types of "justifications" were allowed to skip thos