The National League is an association football league in England consisting of three divisions, the National League, National League North, and National League South. It was called the "Alliance Premier League" from 1979 until 1986. Between 1986 and 2015, the league was known as the "Football Conference".
The Northern Premier League is an English football league that was founded in 1968. Together with the Isthmian League and the Southern League it forms levels seven and eight of the English football league system.
The National League System comprises the six levels of the English football league system immediately below the level of the English Football League. It comes under the jurisdiction of The Football Association. The National League System has a hierarchical format with promotion and relegation between leagues at different levels. For details of leagues above and below the National League System, see the English football league system.
The Scottish football league system is a series of generally connected leagues for Scottish football clubs.
The Southern League is a football competition featuring semi-professional clubs from East Anglia, the South and Midlands of England, and South Wales. Together with the Isthmian League and the Northern Premier League it forms levels seven and eight of the English football league system.
The English football league system, also known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs in England, with five teams from Wales, one from Guernsey, one from Jersey and one from the Isle of Man also competing. The system has a hierarchical format with promotion and relegation between leagues at different levels, allowing even the smallest club the theoretical possibility of ultimately rising to the very top of the system, the Premier League. Below that are levels 2–4 organised by the English Football League, then the National League System from levels 5–10 administered by the FA, and thereafter Regional feeder leagues run by relevant county FAs on an ad hoc basis. It also often happens that the Premier Division of a Regional Feeder League has its constitution given to it by the FA. They have to accept it or appeal but cannot reject it at an annual general meeting.
The Italian football league system, also known as the Italian football pyramid, refers to the hierarchically interconnected league system for association football in Italy. It consists of nine national and regional tournaments, the first three being professional, while the remaining six are amateur, set up by the Italian Football Federation. One team from San Marino also competes. The system has a hierarchical format with promotion and relegation between leagues at different levels.
Football is the most popular sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game. With over 40,000 association football clubs, England has more clubs involved in the code than any other country. England hosts the world's first club, Sheffield F.C.; the world's oldest professional association football club, Notts County; the oldest national governing body, the Football Association; the joint-oldest national team; the oldest national knockout competition, the FA Cup; and the oldest national league, the English Football League. Today England's top domestic league, the Premier League, is one of the most popular and richest sports leagues in the world, with five of the ten richest football clubs in the world as of 2022.
In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams can move up and down between multiple divisions arranged in a hierarchical structure, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. In a system of promotion and relegation, the best-ranked team(s) in a lower division are promoted to a higher division for the next season, and the worst-ranked team(s) in the higher division are relegated to the lower division for the next season. During the season, teams that are high enough in the league table that they would qualify for promotion are sometimes said to be in the promotion zone, and those at the bottom are in the relegation zone.
A sports league is a group of individual athletes, sports teams or clubs who form a league to compete against each other and gain points in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete periodically, at its most complex, it can be an international professional league making large amounts of money and involving dozens of teams and thousands of players.
Association football is organised on a separate basis in each of the four constituent countries that make up the United Kingdom (UK), with each having a national football association responsible for the overall management of football within their respective country. There is no United Kingdom national football team. Football has been the most popular sport in the UK since the 1860s. Rugby union, rugby league and cricket are other popular sports.
Semi-professional sports are sports in which athletes are not participating on a full-time basis, but still receive some payment. Semi-professionals are not amateur because they receive regular payment from their team, but generally at a considerably lower rate than a full-time professional athlete. As a result, semi-professional players frequently have full-time employment elsewhere. A semi-pro player or team could also be one that represents a place of employment that only the employees are allowed to play on. In this case, it is considered semi-pro because their employer pays them, but for their regular job, not for playing on the company's team.
The West Midlands (Regional) League is an English association football competition for semi-professional and amateur teams based in the West Midlands county, Shropshire, Worcestershire, southern Staffordshire and northern Herefordshire. It has two divisions, the highest of which is Division One, a regional feeder for the National League System (NLS) at the eleventh level of the overall English football league system.
Association football is one of the most popular sports in Wales, along with rugby union. Wales has produced club teams of varying fortunes since the early birth of football during the Victorian period, and in 1876 a Wales national football team played their first international match. Football has always had a close rivalry with the country's de facto national sport rugby union, and it is much discussed as to which is Wales' more popular game. The Football Association of Wales (FAW), was established in 1876 to oversee the Wales national team and govern the sport in Wales, later creating and running the Welsh football league system.
Professional sports leagues are organized in numerous ways. The two most significant types are one that developed in Europe, characterized by a tiered structure using promotion and relegation in order to determine participation in a hierarchy of leagues or divisions, and a North American originated model characterized by its use of franchises, closed memberships, and minor leagues. Both these systems remain most common in their area of origin, although both systems are used worldwide.
For more information on the current structure of the NLS, see the main article.
The Yorkshire Amateur Association Football League is an amateur competitive football league based in West Yorkshire, England. The league has a total of eight divisions, the highest of which is the Yorkshire Amateur League Supreme Division, which sits at level 11 of the English football league system. It is a feeder to the Northern Counties East Football League.
The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in the world, and was the top-level football league in England from its foundation until 1992, when the top 22 clubs split from it to form the Premier League. The Football League was rebranded as the "English Football League" (EFL) from the 2016–17 season.
The Trinidad and Tobago football league system, also known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs in Trinidad and Tobago. The system has a hierarchical format with promotion and relegation between leagues at different levels and is governed by the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association at the national level. There are over eight individual leagues, containing more than ten divisions. The exact number of clubs varies from year to year as clubs join and leave leagues or fold altogether, but an estimated average of 10 clubs per division implies that more than 100 clubs are members of a league in the Trinidad and Tobago football league system.
The Danish football league system, also known as the football league pyramid, refers to the hierarchically interconnected league structure for association football in Denmark, in which all divisions are bound together by the principle of promotion and relegation. Within men's association football, the top two professional levels contain one division each. Below this, the semi-professional and amateur levels have progressively more parallel divisions, which each cover progressively smaller geographic areas. The top four tiers are classed as nationwide, while the fifth tier and below are classed provincial leagues. Teams that finish at the top of their division at the end of each season can rise higher in the pyramid, while those that finish at the bottom find themselves sinking further down. In theory it is possible for even the lowest local amateur club to rise to the top of the system and become Danish football champions one day. The number of teams promoted and relegated between the divisions varies, and promotion to the upper levels of the pyramid is usually contingent on meeting additional criteria, especially concerning appropriate facilities and finances.
