Of all the sports played on planet Earth, football is the one with the widest outreach and without parallel worldwide popularity. Every top football playing country has its own domestic Football League. At present the English Premiership is by far the top domestic football league in the world. There are similar high quality domestic leagues in countries like Spain, Germany, France, etc but presently those are not at the same level as English Premier League.
Way back from the season 1888 -89 to 1991-92, the English football’s First Division’s winning club became English football champions. At the close of 1990-91 season, a proposal was tabled for the establishment of a new league that would bring more money into the game.
An agreement was signed on 17th July 1991 by the game’s top flight clubs laying out the basic principles for setting up football English Premier League. The newly formed League assumed commercial independence from the Football Association, giving itself the licence to negotiate its own broadcast and sponsorship agreements. The argument given at the time was that the extra income would allow English clubs to compete with teams across Europe and support the game at grassroot level within Englad.
The First Division Club’s collectively resigned from the Football League in 1992 and on 27 May of that year, the FA Premier League was formed as a limited company housed in an office at the Football Association’s then headquarters in Lancaster Gate in London. The Premier League was set up with the two-member board. Rick Perry, the chief executive and Sir John Quinton, appointed as the League’s Chairman in December 1991.
With the “Live” sports television exploding into action worldwide, Premier League took advantage of a mouth-watering television rights sale package with Sky Sports and BT Sports. The money package agreed was a staggering £4.5bn, or £1.5b a year, for screening live 128 and 32 games, respectively in each season. The BBC was awarded the Premiership highlights package broadcast on its iconic “Match of the Day” programme. This level of financial richness was unimaginable even a few years earlier. The game of football was transformed for ever.
For the 1218-19 season, the Premier League match attendance was 38,181, second only to the German league with an average attendance of 43,500.
The Premier League is ranked first in the UEFA coefficient rankings, based on performances in European competitions over the past five seasons. It is ahead of Spain’s La Liga, despite its glorified clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona. The English premiership has produced the second highest number of European Cup or UEFA Champions League title winners with a record 6 English clubs having won 15 titles.
Similar posts about other top European Leagues like the Spanish La Liga, the Italian Serie A, the German Bundesliga and the French Ligue 1; that’s in order of their current rankings.