Premier League/import

The Premier League is England's top domestic league, currently comprising of 20 teams, with promotion from and relegation to the Football League Championship. The season runs from August to May, with each team playing every other team once at home and once away, totalling 38 games.

The League was formed on February 20, 1992 with the first games commencing on August 15, 1992, following the decision of clubs from the Football League First Division to break away and sign a new lucrative Television rights deal. The league is currently the richest in the world, with combined revenues of £1.4bn for the 2005/06 season.

Origins
Following a reasonably successful tournament for England in the 1990 World Cup, the downturn of Football attendences which had began in the 1970s and continued throughout the 1980s started to reverse. Moreover, the ban on English clubs competing in European competitions following the Heysel Disaster of 1985 had been lifted in 1989, whilst clubs also acknowledged that improvements at Football stadiums had to take place following the Hillsborough Disaster.

Increased Television coverage meant that revenue from Televised games was becoming more important to the clubs. In 1986, the Football League received £6.3m for a two year deal. In 1988 a new 4-year deal was negotiated with the league receiving £44m. It was during these negotiations that the first signs of a split occured with ten clubs threatening to break away before being persuaded to stay.

During the summer of 1991, a number of top flight clubs again considered breaking away to take advantage of Football's increasing resurgence in popularity, and an agreement by England's Top 20 clubs was signed on [[July 17, 1991 establishing the basic principles for the formation of a new breakaway league. This would give the clubs commercial independence from both the Football League and the Football Association, allowing them to negotiate their own broadcasting rights and sponsorship deals.

Beginnings
Following the culmination of the 1991/92 season, the First Division clubs resigned from the Football League and the Premier League was established as a limited company on May 27, 1992.

In terms of the league structure, there was little change. The Football League continued to operate the three lower leagues and promotion and relegation between the Premier League and the 'new' Division 1 continued in the same way as they had between the 'old' Divisions 1 and 2.

Competition Format
The league is comprised of 20 teams, with each team playing every other club twice - once at home and once away - over the course of the season, totalling 38 games for each club. 3 points are awarded for a victory, 1 point for a draw and no points for a loss. The club with the most points at the end of the season wins the League title. Where two or more clubs have the same number of points, they are ranked by goal difference (the number of goals scored, weighted against the number of goals conceded). Should two teams have the same number of points and the same goal difference in an issue affecting the League title, qualification for European competitions or relegation, a playoff at a neutral venue is used as the deciding factor (this has to date never been needed).

Promotion and Relegation The bottom three ranked sides in the Premier League at the end of each season are relegated to the Championship. They are replaced by the top 2 ranked clubs from the Championship and the winner of the Championship Playoffs

Qualification for European Competitions The top 4 sides in the Premier League qualify for the Champions League. The Champions and Second place clubs go through automatically to the Group Stage, whilst the teams finishing in 3rd and 4th places are entered into the Third Qualifying stage and must win a two-legged playoff to progress to the Group Stage.

The side finishing in fifth place qualifies for the UEFA Cup, however as the winners of the FA Cup also qualify for the UEFA Cup, the team who finishes in sixth place may qualify, provided that both the FA Cup Winners and Runners-Up have both finished in the Premier League's top 5.

An exception to the usual European qualification occured at the end of the 2004/05 season, when Liverpool won the Champions League, but failed to finish in the top 4 of the Premier League. UEFA gave Liverpool special dispensation to compete in the following season's Champions League as defending Champions, and as a result five English teams competed in the competition. However, UEFA also ruled that in future should the Champions League winners fail to qualify for the competition via their domestic League position, they would qualify as Champions League winners at the expense of a qualifying club from the same country (meaning that under the new rules, Liverpool would have qualified at the expense of Everton who had finished in 4th place).

Broadcasting Rights in the UK
In 1992, a £191m Television deal over five seasons was agreed with BSkyB for live matches to be televised exclusively on Sky Sports in the UK. A new 4 year deal worth £670m was signed with Sky in 1997, with Sky's third exclusive deal rising to £1.024bn. Sky's monopoly was broken in 2006 following an insistence from the European Commission that a single broadcaster should not be given exclusive rights. As a result, Setanta Sports was awarded two of the six broadcast packages for the deal which commenced from the 2007/08 season, with Sky retaining the other four packages.

The rights for Highlights packages are current owned by Sky, Setanta and BBC Television, who regained the rights from ITV who had held them between 2001 and 2004.

BBC Radio Five Live continue to hold the rights to live radio coverage, which they have held since the beginning of the league in 1992. The individual clubs are also able to negotiate deals with local radio stations in their areas to broadcast live commentary of all of their home and away games.

Sponsorship
During the inaugural 1992/93 season, the Premier League was not sponsored, and was simply known as the FA Premier League. However, Carling (a popular brand of Lager in the UK) began sponsoring the league from the 1993/94 season, and the league was known as the 'FA Carling Premiership' until the deal ran out at the end of the 2000/01 season. Between 2001/02 and 2003/04, the league was branded the FA Barclaycard Premiership, due to the new sponsorship deal with Barclaycard credit cards. Since the 2004/05 season, the league has been sponsored by Barclays Bank, although the league underwent a slight name change in 2007/08 from the FA Barclays Premiership to the FA Barclays Premier League.

Current Members

 * Arsenal
 * Aston Villa
 * Blackburn Rovers
 * Bolton Wanderers
 * Chelsea
 * Everton
 * Fulham
 * Hull City
 * Liverpool
 * Manchester City
 * Manchester United
 * Middlesbrough
 * Newcastle United
 * Portsmouth
 * Stoke City
 * Sunderland
 * Tottenham Hotspur
 * West Bromwich Albion
 * West Ham United
 * Wigan Athletic

Previous Members

 * Barnsley
 * Birmingham City
 * Bradford City
 * Charlton Athletic
 * Coventry City
 * Crystal Palace
 * Derby County
 * Ipswich Town
 * Leeds United
 * Leicester City
 * Norwich City
 * Nottingham Forest
 * Oldham Athletic
 * Queens Park Rangers
 * Reading
 * Sheffield United
 * Sheffield Wednesday
 * Southampton
 * Swindon Town
 * Wimbledon
 * Wolverhampton Wanderers