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The Barclays Premier League

When Saturday comes we drop anything and everything to watch our beloved football teams battle it out each week, it doesnt matter whether we're favourites competing for the league title or just happy to get some local pride in the our local derby games! This is a place for football discusions and banter between rival fans! SO EXPECT TO TAKE VERBAL ABUSE!


Competition and structure
The FA Premier League comprises the top twenty football clubs in the league system of English football. It was created in 1992, when the First Division football clubs broke away from the Football League after securing a greatly improved TV rights deal with the then fledgling satellite television company, BSkyB. The first season's twenty-two clubs were reduced to twenty for the 1995-96 season.

The Premiership boasts some of the best players in the world, including many from outside England. The Premier League is the most lucrative football league in the world, with total club revenues of over 1.3 billion in 200405 according to Deloitte, more than forty per cent above its nearest competitor, Italy's Serie A.Revenues will increase substantially by the 200708 season, when new media rights deals start (see below). The Premership is currently third in the UEFA rankings of European leagues based on their performances in European competitions over a five year period, behind Spain's La Liga, and Italy's Serie A.

The 2005-06 average attendance of 33,875 for league matches is the fourth highest of any domestic professional sports league in the world. Based on May 2006 exchange rates, 1.3 billion converts to annual league revenue of about US$2.44 billion. This figure is also the fourth highest for any sports league worldwide, behind the annual revenues of the three most popular North American major sports leagues (the National Football League, Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association), but ahead of the National Hockey League.


The competition

There are twenty clubs in the Premier League. During the course of a season, (which lasts from August to May) each club plays the others twice, once at their home stadium and once at that of their opponents for a total of 38 games for each club, and a total of 380 games in a Premier League season. Teams receive three points for a win and one point for a draw. At the end of each season, the club with the most points is crowned as champion. Additionally, the three lowest placed teams are relegated into the Football League Championship and the top two teams from the Championship, together with the winner of a play-off involving the third to sixth placed clubs, are promoted in their place.

The top four teams in the Premiership qualify for the UEFA Champions League, with the top two teams directly entering the group phase. The third and fourth placed teams enter the competition at the third qualifying round and must win a two-legged knockout tie in order to enter the group phase. The fifth placed team automatically qualifies for the UEFA Cup, and the sixth and seventh placed teams can also qualify, depending on what happens in the two domestic cup competitions. If the FA Cup champions and runners-up both finish in the top five of the Premier League, the FA Cup's UEFA Cup spot goes to the sixth placed team in the League. If the League Cup is won by a team that has already qualified for Europe, the League Cup's UEFA Cup spot also goes to the next highest placed team in the League (unlike the FA Cup spot, it is never transferred to the losing finalist).


Sponsorship

Since 1993, the FA Premier League has been sponsored. The sponsor has been able to determine the league's sponsorship name. So far, all the sponsors have referred to the competition as the 'Premiership'. The list below details who the sponsors have been and what they called the competition:

1993-2001: Carling (FA Carling Premiership)
2001-2004: Barclaycard (Barclaycard Premiership)
2004-2008: Barclays (Barclays Premiership)