(in English, Indonesian, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, and Chinese), Performance record of clubs in the Premier League, List of association football clubs playing in the league of another country, 2020–21 UEFA Champions League§Association team allocation, English football clubs in international competitions, List of Premier League football club owners, Broadcasting and the foundation of the Premier League, Premier League Parachute and Solidarity Payments, Premier League records and statistics § Player records, List of foreign Premier League goalscorers, Progression of British football transfer fee record, List of most expensive association football transfers, List of top Premier League goal scorers by season. On 26 December 1999, Chelsea became the first Premier League side to field an entirely foreign starting line-up,[193] and on 14 February 2005, Arsenal were the first to name a completely foreign 16-man squad for a match. [3] The league is a corporation in which the member clubs act as shareholders, and generates €2.2 billion per year in domestic and international television rights. Because of the lower differential between team wage bills in the Premier League, it is often regarded as being more competitive than other top European leagues.[203]. [11] The Premier League ranks second in the UEFA coefficients of leagues based on performances in European competitions over the past five seasons as of 2019, only behind Spain's La Liga. [204] The record has increased steadily and Philippe Coutinho is now the most expensive transfer involving a Premier League club at £106 million. [123] The money is divided into three parts:[124] 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. [174][175] Since the formation of the Premier League, football grounds in England have seen constant improvements to capacity and facilities, with some clubs moving to new-build stadiums. In the 2004–05 season, the figure had increased to 45%. Most famously, Professor Sue Bridgewater of the University of Liverpool and Dr. Bas ter Weel of the University of Amsterdam, performed two separate studies which helped to explain the statistics behind managerial sackings. The BBC has retained the rights to show highlights for the same three seasons (on Match of the Day) for £171.6 million, a 63 per cent increase on the £105 million it paid for the previous three-year period. They are also the only teams to maintain a winning average of over 50% throughout their entire Premier League tenures.

[54], 49 clubs have played in the Premier League from its inception in 1992, up to and including the 2020–21 season.[75]. [51] In Deloitte's 2019 report, all the "Big Six" were in the top ten of the world's richest clubs. [4] Clubs were apportioned central payment revenues of £2.4 billion in 2016–17, with a further £343 million in solidarity payments to English Football League (EFL) clubs. He broke the record set by Alex Ferguson, who had managed 810 matches with Manchester United from the Premier League's inception to his retirement at the end of the 2012–13 season. 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.

[50] A substantial part of the clubs' revenue by then came from television broadcast deals, with the biggest clubs each taking from around £150 million to nearly £200 million in the 2016–17 season from such deals. Setanta also hold rights to a live 3 pm match solely for Irish viewers. With the new television deals on the horizon, momentum has been growing to find ways of preventing the majority of the cash going straight to players and agents. The winners of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League also qualify for the subsequent season's UEFA Champions League group stage. [40] Leeds United were the only non-"Top Four" side to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League, in the 2000–01 season. [6][7] For the 2018–19 season average Premier League match attendance was at 38,181,[8] second to the Bundesliga's 43,500,[9] while aggregated attendance across all matches is the highest of any league at 14,508,981. [167] Though designed to help teams adjust to the loss of television revenues (the average Premier League team receives £41 million[168] while the average Football League Championship club receives £2 million),[169] critics maintain that the payments actually widen the gap between teams that have reached the Premier League and those that have not,[170] leading to the common occurrence of teams "bouncing back" soon after their relegation. [156] In India, the matches are broadcast live on STAR Sports. [122], Central payments for the 2016–17 season amounted to £2,398,515,773 across the 20 clubs, with each team receiving a flat participation fee of £35,301,989 and additional payments for TV broadcasts (£1,016,690 for general UK rights to match highlights, £1,136,083 for each live UK broadcast of their games and £39,090,596 for all overseas rights), commercial rights (a flat fee of £4,759,404) and a notional measure of "merit" which was based upon final league position. The total domestic rights have raised £3.018 billion, an increase of 70.2% over the 2010–11 to 2012–13 rights. [48] Objectors argue that the egalitarian revenue structure in the Premier League helps to maintain a competitive league which is vital for its future success. [235] Twenty-eight players have reached the 100-goal mark. [20], The Premier League sells its television rights on a collective basis. The Premier League, often referred to outside England as the English Premier League or the EPL, is the top level of the English football league system. [78] The number of Welsh clubs in the Premier League increased to two in 2013–14, as Cardiff City gained promotion,[79] but they were relegated after their maiden season.

There has been an increasing gulf between the Premier League and the Football League.

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[243] The design of the trophy is based on the heraldry of Three Lions that is associated with English football. Each club is a shareholder, with one vote each on issues such as rule changes and contracts.

[19][20] According to Scholar who was involved in the negotiations of television deals, each of the First Division clubs received only around £25,000 per year from television rights before 1986, this increased to around £50,000 in the 1986 negotiation, then to £600,000 in 1988. No points are awarded for a loss. [176] Nine stadiums that have seen Premier League football have now been demolished. The plinth has a silver band around its circumference, upon which the names of the title-winning clubs are listed.

The league brought in £320 million from the sale of its international rights for the three-year period from 2004 to 2005 to 2006–07.

[16], During the 1980s major English clubs had begun to transform into business ventures, applying commercial principles to club administration to maximise revenue.

[27] 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. [242] The trophy and plinth are 76 cm (30 in) tall, 43 cm (17 in) wide and 25 cm (9.8 in) deep. The Young Player of the Season award is given to the most outstanding U-23 player starting from the 2019–20 season. [76][77] The first Premier League match to be played outside England was Swansea City's home match at the Liberty Stadium against Wigan Athletic on 20 August 2011. The clubs elect a chairman, chief executive, and board of directors to oversee the daily operations of the league. Stadiums were crumbling, supporters endured poor facilities, hooliganism was rife, and English clubs had been banned from European competition for five years following the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985. This is smaller than the club with the highest wage bill in Spain (Barcelona £10.5m), and Italy (Juventus £6.7m), but higher than in Germany (Bayern Munich £6.4m), and France (Paris St Germain 6.1m). [80] Cardiff were promoted again in 2017–18 but the number of Welsh clubs remained the same for the 2018–19 Premier League season, for Swansea City were relegated from the Premier League in 2017–18. [241], The current Premier League trophy was created by Royal Jewellers Asprey of London. [24], At the close of the 1990–1991 season, a proposal was tabled for the establishment of a new league that would bring more money into the game overall. [71], There are 20 clubs in the Premier League. Two trophies are held for the purpose of making the award within minutes of the title being secured, in the event that on the final day of the season two clubs are still within reach of winning the League.

Seven of them have won the title: Manchester United (13), Chelsea (5), Manchester City (4), Arsenal (3), Blackburn Rovers (1), Leicester City (1) and most recently Liverpool (1). [237] Thierry Henry won his fourth overall scoring title by scoring 27 goals in the 2005–06 season. Following the 2003–04 season, Arsenal acquired the nickname "The Invincibles" as it became the first club to complete a Premier League campaign without losing a single game, the only time this has ever happened in the Premier League.[36][37]. Bridgewater's study found clubs generally sack their managers upon dropping below an average of one point per match. [194] By 2009, under 40% of the players in the Premier League were English. [65], The current chairman is Sir Dave Richards, who was appointed in April 1999, and the chief executive is Richard Masters who was appointed in December 2019 and succeeds Richard Scudamore, who held the post from November 1999 until his retirement in November 2019.