Barclays Premier League

The Premier League is a separate entity that sits the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with The Football League. The Premier League is a corporation in which the 20 member clubs act as shareholders. Seasons run from August to May, with teams playing 38 games each totalling 380 games in the season. It is sponsored by Barclays Bank and therefore officially known as the Barclays Premier League. In the Premier League, most of the games are played during Saturdays and Sundays, with a few games played during the weekdays.

The competition was started as the FA Premier League on 20 February 1992 following the decision of clubs in the Football League First Division to break away from The Football League.

Until that point, the Football League ran all the divisions and all broadcast moneys were equally split across 80 clubs. Then Sky came along and persuaded the top tier of clubs to form a breakaway league. Thus was born the Premiership. The Premier League is now the world's most watched sporting league. It is the world's most lucrative football league, with combined club revenues of £1.93 billion ($3.15bn) in 2007?08. It is also ranked first in the UEFA coefficients of leagues based on performances in European competitions over the last five years, ahead of Spain's La Liga and Italy's Serie A.

A total of 43 clubs have competed in the Premier League, but only four have won the title: Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers, Arsenal, and Chelsea. The current champions are Manchester United, who won their eleventh Premier League title in the 2008?09 season, the most of any Premier League team. This title triumph also levelled United and Liverpool on 18 top-flight championships altogether.