Premier League

The Premier League (originally incorporated as the FA Premier League) is the league at the top of the football pyramid in English football. It was established in 1992 and was created to replace the old Football League First Division, with a greater focus on television rights for member clubs. Up. The Football Conference League maintained its place as the buffer between the Football League as the rest of the non-League English football pyramid.

The Premier League consists of 20 teams (previously 22 teams, reduced to 20 in 1995 at the behest of FIFA), one of which is currently based in Wales. The Premier League primarily covers English teams, but because the Football League has six Welsh teams that are not part of the Welsh football pyramid, the Premier League de facto covers Wales.

The team that finishes in first place is crowned the Premier League Champion for that season, and during the next season are permitted to wear the golden F.A. Premier League emblem on their kit. Teams that finish second and third are awarded automatic qualification to the following season's UEFA Champion's League, with automatic placement in the group stages.

The team that finishes fourth is awarded provisional qualification to the UEFA Champion's League, pending the outcome of a knockout match against another team from within UEFA. Due to the co-efficient placed on English teams by UEFA, only one knockout match need be won by the team that finishes fourth; this is in contrast to the Scottish Premiership, where even the Scottish Premiership Champion must win three knockout matches to gain entry to the group stages of the UEFA Champion's League. The fifth-placed team is awarded an automatic place in the following season's UEFA Europa League, at the group stage.

Teams that finish eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth are relegated to the Football League Championship (previously called Division One). These teams are replaced next season by the teams that finished first and second in the Football League Championship the previous season, as well as the team that won both of their play-off knockout matches.

The team that finishes first in the Premier League and the team that wins the FA Cup historically play in the FA Community Shield (previously called the FA Charity Shield), a charity-driven pre-season friendly. If the same team wins the Premier League and the FA Cup, the winner of the Premier League is instead pitted against the runner-up of the FA Cup.