INTRODUCTION

The Premier League (officially known as the Barclays Premier League for sponsorship reasons, colloquially known as The Premiership), is an English professional league for football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. The Premier League is currently contested by 20 clubs, with The Football League, English football's governing body. Seasons run from August to May, with teams playing 38 games each. The competition formed as the FA Premier League on 20 February 1992 and the first games were played on 15 August that year. The Football League had served as England and Wales' primary football competition since 1888. Since then, the Premier League has become the world's most watched sporting league and the most lucrative football league, with cumulative club revenues of around 1.4 billion. The league is a corporation with the 20 clubs acting as shareholders. A total of 40 clubs have competed in the Premier League, but only four have won the title: Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers, Arsenal, and Chelsea. The current Premier League champions are Manchester United, who won their ninth title in the 200607 season, the most of any Premier League team.

CONTENTS

1 History
o o o

1.1 Origins 1.2 Foundation 1.3 Establishment

2 Corporate structure 3 Competition format and sponsorship o 3.1 Competition o 3.2 Sponsorship 4 Finances 5 Media coverage o 5.1 United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland o 5.2 Worldwide 6 Criticisms o 6.1 Widening gap between lower leagues o 6.2 "Big Four" dominance 7 Premier League clubs o 7.1 Premier League members for 200708 8 Players o 8.1 Top scorers 9 Women's Premier League

History
Origins
The 1980s had marked a low point for English football. Stadiums were crumbling, supporters endured poor facilities, and English clubs were banned from European competition. The Football League First Division, which had been the top level of English football since 1888, was well behind leagues such as Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga in attendances and revenues, and several top English players had moved abroad. However, by the turn of the 1990s the downward trend was starting to reverse; England had been successful in the 1990 FIFA World Cup, reaching the semi-finals. Football League received 6.3million for a two-year agreement in 1986, but when that deal was renewed in 1988, the price rose to 44m over four years. The 1988 negotiations were the first signs of a breakaway league; ten clubs threatened to leave and form a "super league", but were eventually persuaded to stay. As stadiums improved and match attendance and revenues rose, the country's top teams again considered leaving the Football League in order to capitalize on the growing influx of money being pumped into the sport.

Foundation
The Founder Members Agreement, signed on 17 July 1991 by the game's top-flight clubs, established the basic principles for setting up the FA Premier League. The newly formed top division would have commercial independence from the Football Association and the Football League, giving the FA Premier League license to negotiate its own broadcast and sponsorship agreements. This was considered necessary so that English clubs could once again compete with and beat the best of Europe, while attracting the best talent in the world, something which in 1991 seemed practically unthinkable. In 1992 the First Division clubs resigned from the Football League and on 27 May 1992 the FA Premier League was formed as a limited company working out of an office at the then Football Association's headquarters in Lancaster Gate.

Establishment
As of 2007 there had been 15 completed seasons of the Premier League. The league held its first season in 199293 and was originally composed of 22 clubs. The first ever Premiership goal was scored by Brian Deane of Sheffield United in a 21 win against Manchester United. Due to insistence by FIFA, the number of clubs was reduced to 20 in 1995 when four teams were relegated from the league and only two

teams promoted. On 8 June 2006, FIFA requested that all major European leagues, including Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga be reduced to 18 teams by the start of the 200708 season. But ultimately the 200708 season kicked off again with 20 teams. The league changed its name from the FA Premier League to simply the Premier League in 2007.

Corporate structure
The Premier League is operated as a corporation and is owned by the 20 member clubs. Each club is a shareholder, with one vote each on issues such as rule changes and contracts. The clubs elect a Chairman, Chief Executive, and Board of Directors to oversee the daily operations of the league. The Football Association is not directly involved in the day-to-day operations of the Premier League, but has veto power as a special shareholder during the election of the Chairman and Chief Executive and when new rules are adopted by the league. The Premier League sends representatives to UEFA's European Club Forum, the number of clubs and the clubs themselves chosen according to UEFA coefficients. The European Club Forum is responsible for electing three members to UEFA's Club Competitions Committee, which is involved in the operations of UEFA competitions such as the Champions League and UEFA Cup

Competition format and sponsorship

Competition
There are 20 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. Teams receive three points for a win and one point for a draw. No points are awarded for a loss. Teams are ranked by total points, and then goals scored. At the end of each season, the club with the most points is crowned champion. If points are equal, the goal difference and then goals scored determine the winner. If still equal, teams are deemed to occupy the same position. If there is a tie for the championship, for relegation, or for qualification to other competitions, a play-off match at a neutral venue decides rank. 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 play-offs involving the third to sixth placed Championship clubs, are promoted in their place.

Bolton Wanderers and Fulham compete in the FA Cup.

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

19932001: Carling (FA Carling Premiership) 20012004: Barclaycard (Barclaycard Premiership) 20042010: Barclays (Barclays Premiership (20042007) then Barclays Premier League (20072010))

Finances
The Premier League is with total club revenues of over 1.4 billion in 200506.It is 40% above its nearest competitor: Italy's Serie A. Revenues will increase to approximately 1.8 billion in the 200708 season, when new media rights deals start.. For the past few seasons, the Premier League's gross revenue (1.4bn) has been 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. In terms of world football, the Premier League clubs are some of the richest in the world. Deloitte, who annually release figures on club revenues through its "Football Money League", listed eight Premier League clubs in the top 20 for the 200506 season. No other league has more than four clubs in this table, and while La Liga

rivals Real Madrid and F.C. Barcelona are currently ranked #1 and #2, no other Spanish clubs are listed in the top 20. Premier League teams have dominated the list for many years, and even topped the list for almost a decade until the 200405 season. Another significant source of regular income for Premier League clubs remains their revenue from stadium attendances, which, with the 200506 average attendance of 34,364 for league matches, is the fourth highest of any domestic professional sports league in the world, ahead of Serie A and La Liga, but behind the German Bundesliga. This represents an increase of over 60% from the average attendance of 21,126 recorded in the league's first season (199293). The 200506 figure, however, is lower than the Premier League's record average attendance of 35,464, set during the 200203 season.

Media coverage
United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland

A 2004 match between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur The League's decision to assign broadcasting rights to BSkyB in 1992 was at the time a radical decision, but one that has paid off. At the time pay television was an almost untested proposition in the UK market, as was charging fans to watch live televised football. However, a combination of Sky's strategy, the quality of Premier League football and the public's appetite for the game has seen the value of the Premier League's TV rights soar. The Premier League sells its television rights on a collective basis. This is in contrast to some European Leagues, including Serie A and La Liga, in which each club sells its rights individually, leading to a much higher share of the total income going to the top few clubs. The money is divided into three parts: half is divided equally between the clubs; one quarter is awarded on a merit basis based on final league position, the top club getting twenty times as much as the bottom club, and equal steps all the way

down the table; the final quarter is paid out as facilities fees for games that are shown on television, with the top clubs generally receiving the largest shares of this. The income from overseas rights is divided equally between the twenty clubs. The total raised from the deals is more than 2.7 billion, giving Premiership clubs an average media income from league games of 45 million a year from 2007 to 2010. The TV rights agreement between the Premier League and Sky has faced accusations of being a cartel, and a number of court cases have arisen as a result. In July 1999 the Premier League's method of selling rights collectively for all member clubs was investigated by the UK Restrictive Practices Court, who concluded that the agreement was not contrary to the public interest.

Worldwide
Promoted as "The Greatest Show On Earth", the Premier League is the world's most popular and most watched sporting league, followed worldwide by over half a billion people in 202 countries, generally on networks owned and/or controlled by NewsCorp, which owns BSkyB and thus the primary UK and Ireland TV rights. In the United States coverage is shared between Fox Soccer Channel and Setanta Sports North America; NewsCorp sometimes buy pitch-side advertising boards with the Fox Soccer Channel logo replacing that of Sky. The Premier League is particularly popular in Asia, where it is the most widely distributed sports programme. In the People's Republic of China, matches attract television audiences between 100 million and 360 million, more than any other foreign sport. Due to this popularity, the league has held three pre-season tournaments in Asia, the only Premier League affiliated tournaments ever to have been held outside England. In July 2003, the FA Premier League Asia Cup was held in Malaysia, featuring three Premiership clubs, Chelsea, Newcastle United and Birmingham City, and the Malaysia national team. In 2005 the Asia Trophy featured a similar format, held in Thailand and featuring the Thailand national team competing against three English clubs Everton, Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers, the last of which won the trophy. In 2007, the FA Premier League Asia Cup took place in Hong Kong, to be renamed the Barclays Asia Trophy and featured Liverpool, Portsmouth, Fulham and the Hong Kong FA Cup winning team, South China. The FA has faced difficulty fighting internet copyright infringement. In an effort to stop the broadcasting of streams of live games on the net they have hired Net Result, a company that specializes on protecting trademark rights online. The BBC reported that Net Result, on behalf of the Premier League, emailed a warning to 101greatgoals.blogspot.com, an independent website that links to youtube videos, that forced its temporary closure.

Criticisms
Widening gap between lower leagues
One of the main criticisms leveled at the Premier League is the increasing gulf between the Premiership and the Football League. Since its split with the Football League, many established clubs in the Premier League have managed to distance themselves from their counterparts in lower leagues. Owing in large part to the disparity in revenue from television rights between the leagues, many newly promoted teams have found it difficult to avoid relegation in their first season in the Premier League. In every season except 200102 (Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers and Fulham) at least one Premier League newcomer has been relegated back to the Football League. In 199798 all three promoted clubs were relegated at the end of the season. The Premier League distributes a small portion of its television revenue to clubs that are relegated from the league in the form of "parachute payments". Starting with the 200607 season, these payments are in the amount of 6.5 million over the club's first two seasons in lower leagues, although this is set to rise to 11.2 million per year for clubs relegated in 20072008. Designed to help teams adjust to the loss of television revenues (the average Premier League team receives 45 million while the average Football League Championship club receives 1 million), critics maintain that the payments actually widen the gap between teams that have reached the Premiership and those that have not, leading to the common occurrence of teams "bouncing back" soon after their relegation.

"Big Four" dominance

Another major criticism is the development of the so-called, "Big Four" clubs. In the past 12 seasons only three different clubs have won the Premier League title Manchester United (seven times), Arsenal (three times) and Chelsea (twice). Blackburn Rovers are the only other team to have won the title in the Premier League's history. In addition, Liverpool, while without an English league title since the pre-Premier League era, have not finished lower than fifth since 1999, and won the Champions League in 2005. In recent years, the success of these clubs has led to these four teams being increasingly referred to as the "Big Four". This developed with Chelsea's rise in status after their takeover by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich in 2003, which has led to multiple league and cup successes. The Big Four clubs currently receive the benefits of Champions League qualification. The benefits include increased revenue and this has widened the gap between the Big Four clubs and the rest of the Premiership.

Premier League clubs

A total of 40 clubs have played in the Premier League between 1992 and 2006. Two other clubs (Luton Town and Notts County) were signatories to the original agreement that created the Premier League, but were relegated prior to the inaugural Premiership season and have not yet returned to the top flight. Seven clubs have been members of the Premiership for every season since its inception. This group is composed of Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur.

Premier League members for 200708

The following 20 clubs are competing in the Premier League during the 200708 season. Club Arsenala,b Aston Villaa,b Birmingham City Blackburn Roversa Bolton Wanderers Chelseaa,b Derby County Evertona,b Fulham Liverpoola,b Manchester Citya Manchester Uniteda,b Middlesbrougha Newcastle United Portsmouth Reading Sunderland Tottenham Hotspura,b West Ham United Wigan Athletic Position in 200607 4th 11th 2nd, Championship 10th 7th 2nd 3rd, Championship 6th 16th 3rd 14th 1st 12th 13th 9th 8th 1st, Championship 5th 15th 17th First season in Last title top division 190405 200304 188889 198081 189394 n/a 188889 199495 188889 n/a 190708 200506 188889 197475 188889 198687 194950 n/a 189495 198990 18991900 196768 189293 200607 190203 n/a 189899 192627 192728 194950 200607 n/a 189091 193536 190910 196061 192324 n/a 200506 n/a

Players
Premier League clubs have almost complete freedom to sign whatever number and category of players they wish. There is no team or individual salary cap, no squad size

limit, no age restrictions other than those applied by general employment law, no restrictions on the overall number of foreign players, and few restrictions on individual foreign players all players with EU nationality, including those able to claim an EU passport through a parent or grandparent, are eligible to play, and top players from outside the EU are able to obtain UK work permits. The only area where the Premiership's player registration rules are more restrictive than those of some other football leagues, such as those of those of Belgium and Portugal, is that academy level non-EU players have little access to English football. In response to concerns that clubs were increasingly passing over young British players in favour of signing less-expensive foreign players, in 1999, the Home Office tightened its rules for granting work permits to players from countries outside of the European Union. Currently a non-EU player applying for the permit must have played for his country in at least 75% of its competitive 'A' team matches for which he was available for selection during the previous two years, and his country must have averaged at least 70th place in the official FIFA world rankings over the previous two years. If a player does not meet those criteria, the club wishing to sign him may appeal if they believe that he is a special talent and "able to contribute significantly to the development of the game at the top level in the UK." As a result of the increasingly lucrative television deals, Player Wages rose sharply following the formation of the Premier League. In the first Premier League season the average player wage was 75,000 per year, but subsequently rose by an average 20% per year for a decade, peaking in the 200304 season, when the annual salary of the average Premier League player was 676,000. The record transfer fee for a Premier League has been broken several times over the lifetime of the competition. Prior to the start of the first Premier League season Alan Shearer became the first British player to command a 3 million-plus transfer fee. The record rose steadily in the Premier League's first few seasons, until Alan Shearer made a world record breaking 15 million move to Newcastle United in 1996. This stood as a British record for four years until it was eclipsed by the 18 million Leeds paid West Ham for Rio Ferdinand. Manchester United subsequently broke the record three times. As of 2007, the current record holder is Andriy Shevchenko, who joined Chelsea from AC Milan in May 2006. The exact figure of the transfer fee was not disclosed, but was reported as being around 30 million.

Top scorers
All-time top scorers in (Premier League goals only) the Premier League

Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Player Alan Shearer Andrew Cole Thierry Henry Robbie Fowler Les Ferdinand Teddy Sheringham Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink Michael Owen Dwight Yorke Ian Wright

Goals 261 187 174 161 150 147 128 127 123 113

As of 24 November 2007 (Bold notes players still in Premier League).

Players in the Premier League can compete for the informal competitions of Goal of the Month and Goal of the Season. Other titles players compete for include the topscorer for a season. Former Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United striker Alan Shearer holds the record for most Premiership goals with 260. Shearer finished among the top ten goal scorers in 10 out of his 14 seasons in the Premier League and won the

top scorer title three times. During the 199596 season he became the first player to score 100 Premier League goals. Manchester United became the first team to have scored 1,000 goals in this league after, in the 200506 season,. Arsenal are the only other team to have reached the 1,000 goal mark. The highest-scoring match to date in the Premiership occurred on 29 September 2007 when Portsmouth defeated Reading 74.

Women's Premier League

The National Division of the FA Women's Premier League is the Premiership's female counterpart. Most of its clubs are affiliated with Premiership and Football League sides; however, teams are semi-professional; no professional teams have existed since Fulham returned to semi-pro status in 2003. The league comprises 12 clubs, operating a system of promotion and relegation with the Northern Division and Southern Division. The champions of each are promoted to the National Division, and the bottom two National Division clubs are relegated. Since forming in 1993 the Women's Premier League has been dominated by Arsenal, who have won nine of the fifteen league titles. The women's game has a much lower profile than that of the Premier League, with Women's Premier League teams typically playing matches at grounds owned by non-league men's clubs.