Aov Premier League

[Octavis Uberstine]

ThePremier League is 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, one home and one away.[1] Most games are played on weekend afternoons, with occasional weekday evening fixtures.[2]

Fifty-one clubs have competed in the Premier League since its inception in 1992: 49 from England and two from Wales. Seven of them have won the title: Manchester United (13), Manchester City (8), Chelsea (5), Arsenal (3), Blackburn Rovers (1), Leicester City (1), and Liverpool (1).[17] Manchester United have won the most titles, with thirteen, while Manchester City hold the distinction of having won the most successive titles, with four. Only six clubs have played in every season to date: Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur.[18]

Despite significant European success in the 1970s and early 1980s, the late 1980s marked a low point for English football. Stadiums were deteriorating, 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.[19] 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.[20]

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, was published in January 1990.[21]

During the 1980s, major English clubs began to transform into business ventures, applying commercial principles to club administration to maximize revenue. Martin Edwards of Manchester United, Irving Scholar of Tottenham Hotspur, and David Dein of Arsenal were among the leaders in this transformation.[22] The commercial imperative led to the top clubs seeking to increase their power and revenue: the clubs in Division One threatened to break away from the Football League, and in doing so, they managed to increase their voting power and gain a more favorable financial arrangement, taking a 50% share of all television and sponsorship income in 1986.[22] They demanded that television companies should pay more for their coverage of football matches,[23] and revenue from television grew in importance. The Football League received 6.3 million for a two-year agreement in 1986, but by 1988, in a deal agreed with ITV, the price rose to 44 million over four years, with the leading clubs taking 75% of the cash.[24][25] 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.[26] The 1988 negotiations were conducted under the threat of ten clubs leaving to form a "super league," but they were eventually persuaded to stay, with the top clubs taking the lion's share of the deal.[24][27][28] The negotiations also convinced the bigger clubs that, in order to receive enough votes, they needed to take the whole of the First Division with them instead of a smaller "super league".[29] By the beginning of the 1990s, the big clubs again considered breaking away, especially now that they had to fund the cost of stadium upgrades as proposed by the Taylor Report.[30]

In 1990, the managing director of London Weekend Television (LWT), Greg Dyke, met with the representatives of the "big five" football clubs in England (Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Everton, and Arsenal) over a dinner.[31] The meeting was to pave the way for a breakaway from The Football League.[32] 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.[33] 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.[34] 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.[29]

This meant a breakup of the 104-year-old Football League that had operated until then with four divisions; the Premier League would operate with a single division and the Football League with three. There was no change in competition format; the same number of teams competed in the top flight, and promotion and relegation between the Premier League and the new First Division remained the same as the old First and Second Divisions, with three teams relegated from the league and three promoted.[28]

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 immediately became the competition's dominant team, winning seven of the first nine trophies, two League and FA Cup 'doubles' and a European treble, initially under a team of hardened veterans such as Bryan Robson, Steve Bruce, Paul Ince, Mark Hughes, and Eric Cantona, before Cantona, Bruce, and Roy Keane led a young, dynamic new team filled with the Class of 92, a group of young players including David Beckham who came through the Manchester United Academy.

In May 2008, Kevin Keegan stated that "Big Four" dominance threatened the division: "This league is in danger of becoming one of the most boring but great leagues in the world."[43] Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said in defence: "There are a lot of different tussles that go on in the Premier League depending on whether you're at the top, in the middle, or at the bottom that make it interesting."[44]

Project Big Picture was announced in October 2020 that described a plan to reunite the top Premier League clubs with the English Football League, proposed by leading Premier League clubs Manchester United and Liverpool.[60] It has been criticised by the Premier League leadership and the UK government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport.[61]

On 26 April 2021, play was stopped during a match between Leicester City and Crystal Palace to allow players Wesley Fofana and Cheikhou Kouyat to break Ramadan fast. It is believed to be the first time in Premier League history that a game was paused to allow Muslim players to eat and drink after the sun had set in accordance with the rules of the faith.[62]

The Football Association Premier League Ltd (FAPL)[71][72][73] 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 select a chairman, chief executive, and board of directors to oversee the daily operations of the league.[74] 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.[75]

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters had earlier spoken out against the implementation of an independent regulator, saying in May 2021, "I don't think that the independent regulator is the answer to the question. I would defend the Premier League's role as regulator of its clubs over the past 30 years."[85]

There are 20 clubs in the Premier League. During the course of a season (from August to May) each club plays the others twice (a double round-robin system), once at their home stadium and once at that of their opponents, for 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, then goal difference, and then goals scored. 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, the head-to-head record between the tied teams is taken into consideration (points scored in the matches between the teams, followed by away goals in those matches.) If two teams are still tied, a play-off match at a neutral venue decides rank.[88]

The on-field referee still makes the final decision, but VAR can assist the referee in the decision-making process. VAR can only be used for four types of decisions: goals, penalty decisions, direct red card incidents, and cases of mistaken identity. VAR officials review the video footage and communicate with the on-field referee via a headset. The VAR officials are located in a central control room, which is equipped with multiple camera angles and the ability to replay footage at various speeds.

A study evaluating fan reception of VAR in the Premier League was made by Otto Kolbinger and Melanie Knopp and was done by analysing Twitter data.[96] The researchers used sentiment analysis to measure the overall positive or negative attitudes towards VAR, as well as topic modelling to identify specific issues that fans are discussing related to VAR. The study found that the reception of VAR on Twitter is largely negative, with fans expressing frustration and criticism of the technology's impact on the flow of the game and the inconsistency of decisions. The researchers also identified specific issues, such as handball and offside decisions, that fans are particularly critical of. The study concludes that VAR has not been well received by fans in the Premier League, and that efforts to improve the technology and increase transparency in decision-making are needed to address these concerns.

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