The 1981 tournament reapplied the concepts of 1980 with two internal divisions, with for the first time promotion from second division (Londrina and CSA). Despite these teams being the second division finalists, they arguably were not the top second division teams as none had participated the second phase play-offs. The 4 teams promoted during the 1980 second phase nominally with better placing than these two finalists were not re-promoted (as they could not play the second division finals while the 4 other teams they had beaten had rejoined the third phase but still none did make into the finals also). Two of these 4 teams didn't participate at all as they did not qualify from their state league performance (América-SP and Americano-RJ).