Although the tournament was one of the four major domestic trophies attainable by top-flight teams at the time, it was perceived by larger clubs as being of a lower priority to the league championship and the Iraq FA Cup.
The Iraq FA accepted the request on 24 August 1991, and put up a committee to administrate the competition, which decided to name the tournament as the Umm al-Ma'arik Championship (referring to the name that Saddam Hussein referred to the Gulf War as)[4] and to make 2 September the opening date.
[1] The tournament was criticised for containing only the top eight teams of the league, because it was thought that Iraqi football needed another competition other than the Iraq FA Cup that allowed clubs from lower divisions to participate.
Due to the end of the rule of the former president Saddam Hussein in April 2003, the Iraq Football Association decided to change the competition's name from Umm al-Ma'arik Championship to Baghdad Championship due to the former name's resemblance to the Gulf War.
Since then, it has often been referred to as the Iraqi Elite Cup due to the fact that it was contested between the best eight teams in the country each year.