The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football League (EFL). Seasons usually run from August to May, with each team playing 38 matches: two against each other team, one home and one away. The total number of matches can be calculated using the formula n*(n-1) where n is the total number of teams. Most games are played on weekend afternoons, with occasional weekday evening fixtures.
The competition was founded as the FA Premier League on 20 February 1992, after First Division (the top tier since 1888) clubs broke away from the English Football League. The league is a corporation governed by its member clubs and managed by a chief executive. The Premier League has a £6.7 billion domestic television rights deal, with Sky and TNT Sports showing at least 215 and 52 games, respectively. In the 2022–2025 cycle, the Premier League's international broadcast rights were worth £5.3 billion, surpassing £5.1 billion domestic rights for the first time. As of 2023–24, clubs received £2.8 billion in central payments, with additional solidarity payments made to relegated clubs.
The Premier League is the world's most-watched sports league, broadcast in 212 territories to a potential audience of 4.7 billion people. More than 1.4 billion watched live games during the 2024–25 season. The league has the highest average match attendance in association football, at 40,421 per game, with most stadiums near full capacity. The Premier League is ranked first in the UEFA coefficient rankings based on performances in European competitions over the past five seasons. English clubs have won the second-highest number of European Cup / UEFA Champions League titles, with a record six clubs winning fifteen European cups in total.
Fifty-one clubs have competed in the Premier League since its inception in 1992: 49 from England and two from Wales. Seven have won the title: Manchester United (13), Manchester City (8), Chelsea (5), Arsenal (4), Liverpool (2), Blackburn Rovers (1) and Leicester City (1). Only six clubs have played in every season to date: Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur.
History
Origins
Despite major European success in the 1970s and early 1980s, the mid-to-late 1980s marked a low point for English football. Stadiums were ageing with poor facilities, hooliganism was rife, and all English clubs faced a 5-year ban from European competition following the events of the 1985 Heysel Stadium disaster, with Liverpool facing an extra year. The Football League First Division, the top level of English football since 1888, was behind leagues such as Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga in attendance and revenues, and several top English players had moved abroad.
By the turn of the 1990s, the downward trend was starting to reverse. At the 1990 FIFA World Cup, England reached the semi-finals; UEFA, European football's governing body, lifted the five-year ban on English clubs playing in European competitions in 1990, resulting in Manchester United lifting the Cup Winners' Cup in 1991. The Taylor Report on stadium safety standards, which proposed expensive upgrades to create all-seater stadiums in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster (between the fans of Liverpool and the fans of Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, Yorkshire on 15 April 1989) was published in January 1990.
During the 1980s, major English clubs began transforming into business ventures, applying commercial principles to club administration to maximise revenue. Martin Edwards of Manchester United, Irving Scholar of Tottenham Hotspur, and David Dein of Arsenal were among the key figures in this shift. The drive for greater revenue and influence led First Division clubs to threaten a breakaway from the Football League. They also began demanding higher fees from broadcasters. As a result, they secured increased voting power and a 50% share of all television and sponsorship income in 1986. Before 1986, clubs received only around £25,000 per year from television rights, and this rose to £600,000 by 1988. The Football League had secured £6.3 million for a two-year deal in 1986, followed by a £44 million deal over four years in 1988 with ITV, with top clubs taking 75% of the income.
Negotiations took place in 1988 under the threat of ten clubs forming a "super league". They were persuaded to stay, but with leading clubs securing the bulk of the deal. The talks also revealed that the bigger clubs would need the entire First Division to gain enough support for a future breakaway. By the early 1990s, such a move was again being considered, especially as clubs faced the financial burden of stadium upgrades recommended by the Taylor Report.
In 1990, the managing director of London Weekend Television (LWT), Greg Dyke, met the representatives of the "Big Five" football clubs in England (Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Everton, and Arsenal) over a dinner. The meeting was to pave the way for a breakaway from the Football League. Dyke believed that it would be more lucrative for LWT if only the larger clubs in the country were featured on national television and wanted to establish whether the clubs would be interested in a larger share of television rights money. The five clubs agreed with the suggestion and decided to press ahead with it; however, the league would have no credibility without the backing of the Football Association, and so David Dein of Arsenal held talks to see whether the FA were receptive to the idea. The FA did not have an amicable relationship with the Football League at the time and considered it a way to weaken the Football League's position. The FA released a report in June 1991, Blueprint for the Future of Football, that supported the plan for the Premier League, with the FA as the ultimate authority that would oversee the breakaway league.
Founding and Manchester United dominance (1990s)
+ Foundation, 1990s and early Manchester United dominance Season Champions Runners-up 1992–93 Manchester United Aston Villa 1993–94 Manchester United Blackburn Rovers 1994–95 Blackburn Rovers Manchester United 1995–96 Manchester United Newcastle United 1996–97 Manchester United Newcastle United 1997–98 Arsenal Manchester United 1998–99 Manchester United Arsenal Double winners Treble winners At the close of the 1990–91 season, a proposal was tabled for the establishment of a new league that would bring more money into the game overall. 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 was to have commercial independence from the Football Association and the Football League, giving the FA Premier League licence to negotiate its own broadcast and sponsorship agreements. The argument given was that the extra income would allow English clubs to compete with teams across Europe. This restructuring marked the end of the 104-year-old Football League system that had operated until then with four divisions; the Premier League would run as a single division, with the Football League continuing with three.
Although Dyke played a significant role in the creation of the Premier League, he and ITV (of which LWT was part) lost out in the bidding for broadcast rights: BSkyB won with a bid of £304 million over five years, with the BBC awarded the highlights package broadcast on Match of the Day.
Luton Town, Notts County, and West Ham United were the three teams relegated from the old First Division at the end of the 1991–92 season, and did not take part in the inaugural Premier League season. They were replaced by Ipswich Town, Middlesbrough, and Blackburn Rovers, promoted from the old Second Division. On 27 May 1992, the 22 First Division clubs resigned en masse from the Football League, and the FA Premier League was formed as a limited company, working out of an office at the Football Association's then headquarters in Lancaster Gate.
The league held its first season in 1992–93. The 22 inaugural members of the new Premier League were:
Arsenal Aston Villa Blackburn Rovers Chelsea Coventry City Crystal Palace Everton Ipswich Town Leeds United Liverpool Manchester City Manchester United Middlesbrough Norwich City Nottingham Forest Oldham Athletic Queens Park Rangers Sheffield United Sheffield Wednesday Southampton Tottenham Hotspur Wimbledon
The first Premier League goal was scored by Brian Deane of Sheffield United in a 2–1 win against Manchester United.
Manchester United won the inaugural edition of the new league, ending a twenty-six year wait to be crowned champions of England. Bolstered by this breakthrough, United quickly became the dominant force in the Premier League, winning seven of the first nine titles and securing two League and FA Cup doubles. They were initially led by experienced players such as Bryan Robson, Steve Bruce, Paul Ince, Mark Hughes and Eric Cantona, before evolving into a younger, more dynamic side featuring Roy Keane and the Class of 92, a group of homegrown talents including David Beckham and Paul Scholes.
At the end of the 1994–95 season, four rather than three clubs were relegated, while only two were promoted from the Football League First Division. This allowed the Premier League to reduce its size from 22 to 20 clubs for the start of the 1995–96 season, reducing the number of matches per team from 42 to 38.
Between 1993 and 1997, Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United came closest to challenging United's early dominance. Blackburn, led by the prolific Alan Shearer, won the 1994–95 FA Premier League. Newcastle topped the table for much of the 1995–96 season, and signed Shearer in the summer of 1996 for a then world-record fee of £15 million. He would go on to become the all-time top scorer, a record he still holds. Arsenal emerged as serious contenders by winning the League and FA Cup double in 1997–98, and from that point they and Manchester United would go on to dominate the league for the next several years.
In the 1998–99 season, Manchester United completed a historic treble by winning the Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League. In so doing, they became the first English club to win the European Cup since Liverpool in the 1983–84 season, securing the trophy with a dramatic comeback victory over Bayern Munich in the final.
Emergence of the "Big Four" (2000s) + Results of the 'Big Four' during the 2000s Season 1999–2000 2 5 4 1 2000–01 2 6 3 1 2001–02 1 6 2 3 2002–03 2 4 5 1 2003–04 1 2 4 3 2004–05 2 1 5 3 2005–06 4 1 3 2 2006–07 4 2 3 1 2007–08 3 2 4 1 2008–09 4 3 2 1 10 7 8 10 out of 10 League champions Champions League group stage Champions League third qualifying / play-off round Champions League first qualifying round UEFA Cup / Europa League
The 2000s saw Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Manchester United dominate the Premier League, forming the so-called "Big Four". Manchester United won six league titles (1999–2000, 2000–01, 2002–03, 2006–07, 2007–08, 2008–09), Arsenal claimed two (2001–02, 2003–04), while Chelsea rose to prominence with two under José Mourinho (2004–05, 2005–06). Arsenal's unbeaten 2003–04 season earned them the nickname "The Invincibles", the only team to achieve this feat in the Premier League era. Only three other clubs secured a top-four finish during the decade: Leeds United (1999–00, 2000–01), Newcastle United (2001–02, 2002–03), and Everton (2004–05). However, the Big Four consistently dominated the top spots, with three of them finishing in the top four every season from 1999–2000 to 2008–09.