Football is an incredibly popular sport in Europe, so it is no surprise that there are many prestigious football leagues and divisions on the continent. One of the most renowned football leagues in England is the Premier League, which has the legal name of “The Football Association Premier League Limited.”
The Premier League is regarded as the highest level of the football league system in England and has 20 clubs competing for the title. This league operates in collaboration with the English Football League (EFL) through promotion and relegation, which is a process where teams are transferred from one division to another based on their rankings or performance. To know more about this popular division, here are details about the Premier League.
The Premier League
The Premier League season would usually start in August and end in May of the following year. Each team would have to play 38 matches, and they would have to play against one club for home and away matches. Most of the matches played in the Premier League are often organized on Saturdays and Sundays, although there are occasions where matches would occur on Mondays and Fridays.
Interestingly, the Premier League is the most-watched sports league in the world, so it is not just popular in England but in other countries as well. In fact, the Premier League is broadcasted in 212 territories and 643 million homes, which would allow the league to have 4.7 billion TV viewers. The average match attendance of the Premier League is about 38,000, which makes it the second-most-watched football division in stadiums in Europe, next to Germany’s Bundesliga, which has an average of 43,500 stadium audience members.
The Premier League has also produced some of the best football clubs in Europe, as five English clubs playing within the division have won fourteen trophies at the UEFA Champions League, the biggest football tournament in Europe where the best teams from various countries in the continent compete for the title.
In the Premier League, there have already been about fifty clubs that have competed in the division since its creation in 1992. There were 48 English clubs that played matches in the Premier League, while there were only two Welsh clubs that qualified for the division.
Why the Premier League was Created
Before the creation of the Premier League, the top football division in England was the Football League First Division, which has been at the top of the rankings in the country since 1888. Despite being the top division in the country, it didn’t have many attendances and revenues during the 70s and 80s because of numerous scandals and controversies surrounding English football.
Those scandals and controversies include hooliganism, crumbling stadiums due to poor maintenance and insufficient budget, and the banning of English football clubs from European competition following the infamous Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985, where 39 people were killed during a stampede. Because English clubs didn’t pay their players much during those periods, many of these players have moved abroad where their careers could flourish.
But, by the 1990s, the English football scene started to recover, with UEFA lifting the five-year ban on English clubs. In 1991, one of the English clubs, Manchester United, was able to win the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup.
It was also in the early 1990s when the managing director of London Weekend Television or LWT, Greg Dyke, met with the then-representatives of Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, and Everton, which are five clubs that belong to the Football League First Division. In the meeting, the five football clubs discussed breaking away from the Football League in order to create a new football division in the country.
However, the creation of a new football division in England can only be possible with the approval of The Football Association, who wasn’t keen on endorsing the idea at first, as the new division would just weaken the existing Football League in the country. However, the breakaway league or division still pushed through in 1991, mainly because the Football Association’s relationship with the Football League began to sour, so the association decided to support the new breakaway league to “hijack” the Football League First Division.
The Premier League would then be officially formed on May 27, 1992. The early years of the league would be dominated by Manchester United, who would have almost all titles in the 1990s except for two, particularly the 1994-95 title that was won by Blackburn Rovers and the 1997-98 title won by Arsenal.
By the 2000s, the Premier League would have the “Top Four” clubs, namely Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester United, who would all place in the top four ranking in the league throughout the decade. Manchester United was able to win five titles in the 2000s, while Chelsea and Arsenal would win three and two, respectively. Unfortunately, despite belonging to the “Top Four,” Liverpool didn’t win any titles during the said decade.
Premier League Clubs with the Most Titles
There have been more than 40 football clubs that have played in the Premier League since the 1990s, but the division is primarily dominated by only a few clubs in different decades. The three most prominent clubs in the Premier League are Manchester United, Arsenal, and Chelsea.
The fourth spot was occupied by Liverpool in the early 2000s, but the spot was eventually taken by Manchester City in 2012 when they won the Premier League trophy in the 2011-12 season. After their win, Manchester City began to become an even stronger league, and they are now considered the best football club in the Premier League in the 2010s and 2020s.
But, even if Manchester City is the strongest football club in the Premier League today, a lot of people would still say that the most iconic football club in the division is Manchester United, which was able to win the most titles. To learn more, here is a list of Premier League clubs with the most titles.
- Manchester United – 13 titles
- Manchester City – 6 titles
- Chelsea – 5 titles
- Arsenal – 3 titles
- Liverpool – 1 title
- Leicester City – 1 title
- Blackburn Rovers – 1 title
So, these are the major things that you should know about the Premier League. If you are a football fan, then you have already watched a lot of Premier League games over the years. But, if you are a beginner in the world of football, we recommend that you watch one or two games in the division and see how fun and exciting it is to watch the best clubs in England play the sport.