These days so much of football is being played. Many people get confused with many matches and many teams. Especially those who have just started following. I hope that this post will help you in understanding the structure of football competitions.
The League & Cup Structure:
Most of the nations around the world follow a league and cup structure. In the League all the clubs play twice against each other, and the club with highest points wins. The Cup is a knockout competition. The losers get eliminated and the survivor wins.
English league is arguably the most famous league (at least in India), so I will start with that. The football league structure, also called as Football Pyramid, contains around 150 leagues. Since we are not supposed to do a Doctorate, we will restrict the scope only to the top four levels of the league. These leagues feature "the full-time professional clubs". The system works on promotion and relegation, in which the best teams from lower leagues are promoted to higher leagues and worst teams from higher leagues are relegated to lower leagues. For more on this click here. Below is the list of first 4 levels in Football Pyramid.
| Level | League | Clubs | Promotion | Relegation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barclays Premier League | 20 clubs | - | Last 3 |
| 2 | Coca-Cola Football League Championship | 24 clubs | 3 clubs | Last 3 |
| 3 | Coca-Cola Football League 1 | 24 clubs | 3 clubs | Last 4 |
| 4 | Coca-Cola Football League 2 | 24 clubs | 4 clubs | Last 2 |
Besides this there are two major Cup Competitions in England.
1. The FA Cup (league levels 1-11) : One of the oldest football competition in the World
2. The League Cup or Carling Cup (levels 1-4)
Similar league structure exists in rest of the European (and other) countries. Here's a table of topmost leagues in some of the European countries.
| Country | League | Major clubs |
|---|---|---|
| England | Barclays Premier League | Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Manchester City |
| Spain | Spanish la Liga | Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletico Madrid, Sevilla, Valencia, Villareal |
| Italy | Italian Serie A | AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, AS Roma |
| Germany | German Bundesliga | Bayern Munich, Werder Bremen, FC Schalke 04 |
| France | French League 1 | Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux |
| Netherlands | The Eredivisie | Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord |
| Portugal | Liga Sagres | FC Porto, SL Benfica, Sporting (Lisbon) |
| Scotland | Clydesdale Bank Premier League | Celtic, Rangers |
The Confederation Trophies:
UEFA is one of the six confederations of FIFA which governs the European Football. UEFA runs two main club competitions,
1. The UEFA Champions League - The biggest football trophy in Europe. Some consider it to be the most prestigious club trophy in sports. All the so called big clubs in Europe compete in the competition.
2. The UEFA Cup - This is the second biggest trophy in Europe.
In some later posts I will discuss these competitions in detail.
The major trophy and area of all the confederations is listed below,
| Confederation | Competition | Continents |
|---|---|---|
| AFC | Champions League | Asia, Australia |
| CAF | Champions League | Africa |
| CONCACAF | Champions League | North America, Central America |
| CONMEBOL | Copa Libertadores | South America |
| OFC | Champions League | Oceania |
| UEFA | Champions League | Europe |
The FIFA Club World Cup:
As discussed earlier, there are six confederations of FIFA. The champion of each confederation along with champion of host country compete with each other to be the World Champion. This competition is held in knockout rounds. Discussion on this competition can go very long, so I'll discuss it in later posts.
I think this much information is enough to clear the confusion. Any suggestions welcome...
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