The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened in 1963, the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of professional football, including players, coaches, franchise owners, and front-office personnel, almost all of whom made their primary contributions to the game in the National Football League (NFL); the Hall inducts between four and eight new enshrinees each year. The Hall of Fame's Mission is to "Honor the Heroes of the Game, Preserve its History, Promote its Values & Celebrate Excellence EVERYWHERE."
In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to freely sign with any club or franchise; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is allowed to solicit offers from other teams. In some circumstances, the free agent's options are limited by league rules.
Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations or teams can command large incomes. As a result, more sportspeople can afford to make athleticism their primary career, devoting the training time necessary to increase skills, physical condition, and experience to modern levels of achievement. This proficiency has also helped boost the popularity of sports.
Wrexham Association Football Club is a professional association football club based in Wrexham, Wales that plays in the fifth tier of the English football league system. Based on the club's recorded formation date of 1864, they are the oldest club in Wales and the third oldest professional football team in the world. Since August 2011 Wrexham have been a supporter-owned football club.
The Amateur Football Alliance is a County Football Association in England. It is unusual among County FAs in not serving a particular geographical area. It was founded in 1906 as the Amateur Football Defence Council, was briefly known as the Amateur Football Defence Federation, and was reformed as the Amateur Football Association in 1907, when The FA required all county associations to admit professional clubs. Its aim was, as the decline of amateurism at the highest levels of football set in, to protect and preserve the original amateur spirit. It prides itself on the skill and competitiveness of its leagues, and on its traditions of fair play and respect for opponents and match officials. Many leagues still maintain rules that require clubs to provide food and drink to their opponents and match officials after the match in a clubhouse or public house.
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in North America with regard to several organizations competing in various sports. They generally have lesser fan bases and smaller budgets.
Semi-professional sports are sports in which athletes for whom sport is not a full-time occupation. Semi-professionals are not amateur because they receive regular payment from their team (company), but at a much lower rate than a full-time professional athlete. As a result, players may have a second full-time job. A semipro player/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 semipro because their employer pays them, but for their regular job, not for playing on the company's team.
Blackburn Olympic Football Club was an English football club based in Blackburn, Lancashire in the late 19th century. Although the club was only in existence for just over a decade, it is significant in the history of football in England as the first club from the north of the country and the first from a working-class background to win the country's leading competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup. The cup had previously been won only by teams of wealthy amateurs from the Home counties, and Olympic's victory marked a turning point in the sport's transition from a pastime for upper-class gentlemen to a professional sport.
The Maltese Premier League, known as BOV Premier League for sponsorship reasons with Bank of Valletta, is the top level league for football in Malta. Managed by the Malta Football Association, the Premier League is contested by 14 teams and operates on a promotion and relegation system with the First Division. As of August 2018, the Premier League ranks 45th out of 55 members in the UEFA coefficient.
The transfer window is the period during the year in which a football club can transfer players from other playing staff into their playing staff. Such a transfer is completed by registering the player into the new club through FIFA. "Transfer window" is the unofficial term commonly used by the media for the concept of "registration period" as described in the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Player. According to the rules, each national football association decides on the time of the 'window' but it may not exceed 12 weeks. The second registration period occurs during the season and may not exceed four weeks.
In professional football, a transfer is the action taken whenever a player under contract moves between clubs. It refers to the transferring of a player's registration from one association football club to another. In general, the players can only be transferred during a transfer window and according to the rules set by a governing body. Usually some sort of compensation is paid for the player's rights, which is known as a transfer fee. When a player moves from one club to another, their old contract is terminated and they negotiate a new one with the club they are moving to, unlike in American, Canadian and Australian sports, where teams essentially trade existing player contracts. In some cases, however, transfers can function in a similar manner to player trades, as teams can offer another player on their squad as part of the compensation.
Sports such as football and wrestling have been popular in Ukraine since the 19th century. Ukraine has benefited from the Soviet Union's emphasis on physical education, and Ukraine was left with hundreds of stadiums, swimming pools, gymnasiums, and other athletic facilities after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine sports or athletic movement was influenced greatly by Sokol gymnast organization that was popular in the Central Europe since the second half of the 19th century.
Arden Street Oval is a sports oval in North Melbourne, Victoria. It is currently the training base of the North Melbourne Football Club, an Australian rules football club, and up to the end of the 1985 season it was used as the team's home ground for Victorian Football League (VFL) matches.
Professional sports leagues are organized in numerous ways. The two most significant types are one that developed in Europe, characterised by a tiered structure using promotion and relegation 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.
The National Football Federation of Guatemala, known as Fedefut Guate or FENAFUTG, is the governing body of football in Guatemala. It organizes the football league, Liga Nacional de Guatemala, Primera División de Ascenso, Segunda División de Ascenso, and the Guatemala national football team. It is based in the Zone 15 of Guatemala City.
Kelab Bolasepak Perbadanan Kemajuan Negeri Selangor, or popularly known as PKNS FC is a Malaysian football club based in Petaling Jaya, Selangor. The club currently plays in the top-tier of Malaysian football, the Malaysia Super League.
The Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) is a youth development scheme initiated by the Premier League. The intention of the EPPP is to improve the quality and quantity of home grown players produced by top English clubs. Measures introduced by the EPPP to free up movement of younger players by establishing a hierarchy of association football academies in England and fixing the transfer fees between academies have proved controversial and some smaller clubs closed their academies in response to the changes.
The Scottish Premiership, known for sponsorship reasons as the Ladbrokes Premiership, is the top division of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottish Premiership was established in July 2013, after the SPFL was formed by a merger of the Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football League. There are 12 teams in this division, with each team playing 38 matches per season. Sixteen clubs have played in the Scottish Premiership since its creation in the 2013–14 season. Celtic are the current league champions, being the only league champion to date since its establishment.
Colchester United Football Club Under-23s are the under-23 team of Colchester United Football Club. They play in the South Division of the Professional U21 Development League 2, the second tier of reserve football in England. The team mostly consists of the club's under-23 players, although senior players have occasionally made appearances for the side, for instance, during recovery from injury. The team are coached by Kevin Horlock.
