The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football League (EFL). Seasons typically run from August to May with each team playing 38 matches (playing all 19 other teams both home and away).[1] Most games are played on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, with occasional weekday evening fixtures.[2]
Premier League
Premier League Logo.svg
Founded
20 February 1992; 30 years ago
Country
England
Confederation
UEFA
Number of teams
20
Level on pyramid
1
Relegation to
EFL Championship
Domestic cup(s)
FA Cup
FA Community Shield
League cup(s)
EFL Cup
International cup(s)
UEFA Champions League
UEFA Europa League
UEFA Europa Conference League
Current champions
Manchester City (6th title)
(2021–22)
Most championships
Manchester United (13 titles)
Most appearances
Gareth Barry (653)
Top goalscorer
Alan Shearer (260)
TV partners
Sky Sports, BT Sport, Amazon Prime Video (live matches)
Sky Sports, BBC Sport (highlights)
International:
Broadcasters
Website
premierleague.com
Current: 2022–23 Premier LeagueThe competition was founded as the FA Premier League on 20 February 1992 following the decision of clubs in the Football League First Division to break away from the Football League, founded in 1888, and take advantage of a lucrative television rights sale to Sky.[3] From 2019 to 2020, the league's accumulated television rights deals were worth around £3.1 billion a year, with Sky and BT Group securing the domestic rights to broadcast 128 and 32 games respectively.[4][5] The Premier League is a corporation where chief executive Richard Masters is responsible for its management, whilst the member clubs act as shareholders.[6] Clubs were apportioned central payment revenues of £2.4 billion in 2016–17, with a further £343 million in solidarity payments to English Football League (EFL) clubs.[7]
The Premier League is the most-watched sports league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes and a potential TV audience of 4.7 billion people.[8][9] For the 2018–19 season, the average Premier League match attendance was at 38,181,[10] second to the German Bundesliga's 43,500,[11] while aggregated attendance across all matches is the highest of any association football league at 14,508,981.[12] Most stadium occupancies are near capacity.[13] The Premier League ranks first in the UEFA coefficients of leagues based on performances in European competitions over the past five seasons as of 2021.[14] The English top-flight has produced the second-highest number of UEFA Champions League/European Cup titles, with five English clubs having won fourteen European trophies in total.[1
Fifty clubs have competed since the inception of the Premier League in 1992: forty-eight English and two Welsh clubs. Seven of them have won the title: Manchester United (13), Manchester City (6), Chelsea (5), Arsenal (3), Blackburn Rovers (1), Leicester City (1) and Liverpool (1).[16]5]
History
pave the way for a breakaway from The Football League.[30] Dyke believed that it would be more lucrative for LWT if only the larger clubs in the country were featured on national television and wanted to establish whether the clubs would be interested in a larger share of television rights money.[31] The five clubs agreed with the suggestion and decided to press ahead with it; however, the league would have no credibility without the backing of The Football Association, and so David Dein of Arsenal held talks to see whether the FA were receptive to the idea. The FA did not have an amicable relationship with the Football League at the time and considered it as a way to weaken the Football League's position.[32] The FA released a report in June 1991, Blueprint for the Future of Football, that supported the plan for the Premier League with the FA as the ultimate authority that would oversee the breakaway league.[27]
