Football is the unofficial national sport of England (the official national sport is cricket), and as such has an important place within English...
Football as an organised sport first developed in England before being carried throughout the world by its many fans.
The Football Association
The Football Association (The FA) is the governing body of football in England. All of England's professional football clubs must be members, and thousands of semi-professional and amateur clubs also belong.
League system
The Football League, established in 1888 by Aston Villa director William McGregor, was the first professional football league in the world. Since its founding, however, many other leagues have been founded in England. Over recent years there has been an increasing effort to link all these leagues together in a Pyramidal structure allowing promotion and relegation between different levels. The primary motivation for this drive is to maintain the possibility that any club in England may dream of one day rising to the very top, no matter what status they currently hold.
The FA Premier League
The FA Premier League is the highest league in English football and has 20 member clubs. Winning the Premier League is considered the greatest honour in English football and guarantees qualification for the UEFA Champions League, Europe's elite club competition.
The Premier League was founded in 1992 after England's top clubs broke away from the Football League in a successful effort aimed at increasing their income at the expense of clubs in the lower divisions. Links with The Football League were maintained, and each season the bottom three clubs are relegated from the Premier League and replaced by three from the Football League Championship.
The top two teams in the Premier League each season qualify for the next season's UEFA Champions League. The third and fourth placed clubs also qualify, but have to play in the final qualifying round before they can enter the group stage. The fifth placed club qualifies for the UEFA Cup (although in 2005-06 the fifth placed team, Liverpool, were also allowed into the Champions League as holders), and the sixth and seventh may also qualify if the winners of either the FA Cup or League Cup finish in the top four. The number of clubs qualifying for European competition is determined by UEFA and is based on results over the previous five seasons.
The Football League
Although the oldest league in the world, the Football League now ranks second in the hierarchy of English football after the split of England's top clubs in 1992 to form the FA Premier League. The Football League has 72 member clubs evenly divided among three divisions, currently named the Football League Championship, Football League One and Football League Two.
