Can someone explain how the english football league system to me?

Question

I know there is the premiership which is all the top big clubs but dont get how the lower divisions work.
If someone says Championship when talking about clubs status does that mean Div 1 for example,or is it another league between Prem and Div 1?

Answer 1

OK

Premiership is the old Div 1
Championship is old Div 2
League 1 is old Div 3
League 2 is old Div 4

And by old I'm talking about proper pre-Premiership league names, not pre-Championship (as the poster below myself is talking about, when it was Premiership, Div 1, Div 2, Div 3).

EDIT:

And jude is wrong, there is no League 3 at present, and there has NEVER been a Division 5.

After League 2 you have the Conference National, which is trying to become League 3.

Then Conference North/South

After that it gets more complicated with several leagues feeding into each of those.

To complicate things even more, if you go even further back in history, the leagues were

Div 1
Div 2
Div 3 North/South

But that changed once it became easier, and cheaper, for the smaller clubs to travel longer distances.

Splitting 3N/S into 3 & 4 also meant that there were fewer clubs playing above their level.

EDIT 2

TICKET

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Conference North & South feed Conference National, NOT THE LEAGUE.

Winners of North & South go up automatically, runners up have a playoff (but this year will be different as the Conference is expanding from 22 to 24 teams)

Answer 2

You have lots of different 'leagues' depending on how well the teams have done the previous year. For example, the Premier league is where the best teams in the UK play. Then you have the Championship which is the second best group to be in. Then League one and them League two. It's so the teams will all play someone of similar ability and makes the matches more interesting. At the end of the year the 3 teams that did the worst in thier league get moved down or 'relegated' the the league below and the teams that do the best move up and get 'promoted' into the next league. At the beginning of the year all of the teams in the league or division start off at the same level - with a score of 0. As they won or lose matches it will determine their score. Obviously the aim is to get the highest score in your league. If you get one of the lowest scores you will be demoted to the league below the one you were in.

Answer 3

Premier League
Football League Championship
Football League 1
Football League 2

Those are the top 4 divisions from highest to lowest in England. In the Premiership, each team plays all other 19 Premier teams twice, once away and once at home. They earn points (3-win, 1-draw, 0-loss) which determines their placement in the league table. I'm not sure if this is the same with the lower leagues, but in the Premier League, at the end of the season, the last 3 teams are relegated into the Championship, and in the Championship, the first 2 teams are promoted into the Premier League and a third team is also promoted via the playoffs.

Answer 4

All very confusing isn't it!! The league system has gone through several pointless re-namings in the last 15 years, which is partly why its so confusing to new fans...but the current set-up is like this:

Starting from the top, you have the PREMIERSHIP.

Then you have the CHAMPIONSHIP.

Below that is LEAGUE ONE.

And below that is LEAGUE TWO.

Then, you have the cut-off point between full time professional football clubs, and the rest of football in England which is called "non-league". This includes all semi-professional and amateuer clubs. The top non-league division is the CONFERENCE. In fact, most clubs in the Conference are also full-time professional as well, but it is not a requirement of membership of the Conference.

Below that are SEVEN more levels of non-league football, which includes over 150 local district leagues all around the country.

All of these levels promote and relegate into each other, so in theory it is possible for a tiny pub team from the very bottom non-league level to end up in the Premiership one day.

Answer 5

Premier League is the Top Division
The Championship is the division below the Premier
then below the championship is League 1
and finally below that you have league 2.

they are always messing around with the division names it's annoying i can understand ur confusion as only a few years ago the division below the premiership was called Nationwide league division 1 all they've done is introduced a name change.

why not just have division 1,2,3,4 i think its daft that a team that is effectively in the 3rd division gets to refer to themselves as bein in league 1. probably makes em feel better somehow!

Answer 6

It used to div 1-4 but nowadays due to money and promos its premiership, championship, league 1, league2, and then semi-professionals conference etc. the same promotion, relegation happens, but with playoffs which is a whole other question

Answer 7

there is the premiership with Arsenal, Chelski, Man U, Reading etc
Then there is the Championship (used to be division 1)
then League 1 then league 2 then conference, You can get promoted or relegated from and to each leage one up or down. If you are coming up from the conference though there are conditions you have to have within ground/club to be accepted

Answer 8

The English premier league contains all of the English football clubs who compete against Each other to reach the final and win..All teams play against each other..the game is played twice on both lands..and they sum-up the score..
the top 4 teams qualify to the UEFA Champions' League while teams finished 5th & 6th qualify to the UEFA Cup

there is a tournament like the fifa worldcup but for the clubs they take the champions of Europe the champions of asia the champions of africa and so on and they will compete against Each other in december...

Answer 9

to get into the football league you have to be promoted from the conferance league of which there are two sections north and south, the winners of both sections play off in the final to see who gets into the football league, the football league is made up english league two, english league one,then it goes too english championship then onto english premiership,each league has a play off situation at end of each season where as the winners and runners up get automatic promotion, the next four teams play off against each other to see who gets the final promotion place,the premiershp winners and two runners up get into european champions league, and the next four teams get into eufa cup.

Answer 10

The English Football league promotion & relegated for the 4 division (English Premier League, The League Championship, English League One, English League Two) is a standard 3 teams promotion & relegation.

English Premier League (20 teams):
the top 4 teams qualify to the UEFA Champions' League while teams finished 5th & 6th qualify to the UEFA Cup.

bottom 3 teams will be relegated to the English League Championship (teams finished 18th, 19th & 20th).

The League Championship (24 teams):
top two promoted automatically to the English Premier League, while the 3rd team will be promoted via the play-off matches. teams that finished 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th square off for the final promotion place.

bottom 3 teams will be relegated to the English League One (teams finished 22nd, 23rd, 24th).

English League One (24 teams):
top two promoted automatically to the English League Championship, while the 3rd team will be promoted via the play-off matches. teams that finished 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th square off for the final promotion place.

bottom 4 teams will be relegated to the English League Two (teams finished 21st, 22nd, 23rd & 24th).

English League Two (24 teams)
top three promoted automatically to the English League One, while the 4th team will be promoted via the play-off matches. teams that finished 4th, 5th, 6th & 7th square off for the final promotion place.

bottom two teams will be relegated to the Football Conference (teams finished 23rd & 24th).