The EFL's 72 member clubs are grouped into three divisions: Each division has 24 clubs, and in any given season a club plays each of the others in the same division twice, once at their home stadium and once at that of their opponents.
This makes for a total of 46 games played each season. Clubs gain three points for a win, one for a draw, and none for a defeat. At the end of the season, clubs at the top of their division may win promotion to the next higher division, while those at the bottom may be relegated to the next lower one.
At the top end of the competition, three Championship clubs win promotion from the Football League to the Premier League, with the bottom three Premier League clubs taking their places.
At the lower end, two League Two clubs lose their Football League status with relegation to the National division of the National League , while two teams from that division join League Two of The Football League in their stead.
Promotion and relegation are determined by final league positions, but to sustain interest for more clubs over the length of the season one promotion place from each division is decided according to a playoff between four clubs, which takes place at the end of the season.
It is therefore possible for a team finishing sixth in the Championship or League One, or seventh in League Two, to be promoted rather than the clubs finishing immediately above them in the standings.
Since the —05 season, penalties have existed for clubs entering financial administration during the season. If a club enters administration before 31 March of any given season, they will immediately be deducted 12 points; entering administration from 1 April onward will see the points deduction either held over until the end of the season if the club finishes outside the relegation places , or applied the following season if the club was relegated anyway.
It is also required that a club exiting administration agree a Creditor's Voluntary Agreement, and pay in full any other footballing creditors.
Failure to do either of these will result in a second, potentially unlimited though in practise usually between 15 and 20 points deduction.
The other main situation in which is a club may lose points is by fielding an improperly registered or otherwise ineligible player. If a club is found to have done this, then any points earned from any match that player participated in will be deducted; the opposing club s do not earn any points from this, however.
The EFL organises two knock-out cup competitions: The organisation celebrated its th birthday in with a Centenary Tournament at Wembley between 16 of its member clubs.
After four years of debate, the Football Association finally permitted professionalism on 20 July Before that date many clubs made payments to "professional" players to boost the competitiveness of their teams, breaking FA rules and arousing the contempt of those clubs abiding by the laws of the amateur Football Association code.
A director of Birmingham-based Aston Villa, William McGregor, was the first to set out to bring some order to a chaotic world where clubs arranged their own fixtures, along with various cup competitions.
His idea may have been based upon a description of a proposal for an early American college football league, publicised in the English media in which stated: The first season of the Football League began a few months later on 8 September with 12 member clubs from the Midlands and North of England: Each club played the other twice, once at home and once away, and two points were awarded for a win and one for a draw.
This points system was not agreed upon until after the season had started; the alternative proposal was one point for a win only.
Preston won the first league title without losing a game, and completed the first league—cup double by also taking the FA Cup.
In Stoke were not re-elected to the league, and were replaced for the —91 season by Sunderland , who won it in their second, third and fifth year.
Stoke were re-elected for the —92 season, along with Darwen , to take the league to 14 clubs. Preston North End, Aston Villa and Sunderland dominated the early years of the game; in the first fourteen seasons the only other clubs to win single league titles were Everton, Sheffield United and Liverpool.
A new Second Division was formed in with the absorption of the rival Football Alliance. The bottom clubs of the lower division were subsequently required to apply for re-election to the League at the end of each season.
Bootle were dissolved because of financial problems. The Second Division increased to 15 clubs for season — Instead of three clubs expanding the division, five were added to make the number to fifteen.
In Loughborough replaced Walsall Town Swifts. Automatic promotion and relegation for two clubs was introduced in when the previous system of test matches between the bottom two clubs of the First Division and the top two clubs of the Second Division was brought into disrepute when Stoke and Burnley colluded in the final match to ensure they were both in the First Division the next season.
After a few years other northern clubs began to catch up, with the likes of Newcastle United and Manchester United joining the League and having success.
From , Aston Villa —, —10 , Liverpool —01, —06 , Sunderland —02, —13 , The Wednesday —03, —04 , Newcastle United —05, —09 , Manchester United —08, —11 and Blackburn Rovers —12, —14 all won two titles prior to the outbreak of the First World War , while Everton added a second title to their much earlier success in the last season, — It was not until the early years of the 20th century, and the expansion of both Leagues to 20 clubs in , that further southern clubs such as Chelsea and Clapton Orient , Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur established themselves in the League.
There would be a further wait until before a southern club, Arsenal, would win the League for the first time. Unlike in most other Leagues in Europe, no single English club managed to remain an ever-present in the division during the one hundred and four years of its existence as the top division in the country.
Everton come closest, missing just four seasons through relegation, and remain one of only three clubs in England to have played over top-flight seasons, along with Aston Villa and Arsenal.
The League was suspended for four seasons during the First World War and resumed in with the First and Second Divisions expanded to 22 clubs.
On resumption West Bromwich Albion —20 and Burnley —21 , both original 12 clubs, won their first-ever titles in Albion's case their only title to date.
In , leading clubs from the Southern League joined the League to form a new Third Division, which in was renamed the Third Division South upon the further addition of more clubs in a new Third Division North.
One club from each of these divisions would gain promotion to the Second Division, with the two relegated clubs being assigned to the more appropriate Third Division.
To accommodate potential difficulties in this arrangement, clubs in the Midlands such as Mansfield Town or Walsall would sometimes be moved from one Third Division to the other.
Following this burst of post-war growth, the League entered a prolonged period of relative stability with few changes in the membership, although there were changes on the pitch.
In , a new offside law reduced the number of opponents between the player and the goal from three to two, leading to a large increase in goals, and numbers on shirts were introduced in Between and , Huddersfield Town were the first team to win three consecutive league titles and never won another one, though they finished as runners-up for the following two years.
This was equalled by Arsenal between and , during a period from to in which they won five titles out of eight. Manchester City —37 became the only other club to be added to the list of Football League winners prior to the outbreak of the Second World War , the fourteenth club to achieve the feat since — The League was suspended once more in with the outbreak of the Second World War, this time for seven seasons.
The Third Divisions were expanded to 24 clubs each in , bringing the total number of League clubs to 92, and in the decision was made to end the regionalisation of the Third Divisions and reorganise the clubs into a new nationwide Third Division and Fourth Division.
To accomplish this, the clubs in the top half of both the Third Division North and South joined together to form the new Third Division, and those in the bottom half made up the Fourth Division.
Four clubs were promoted and relegated between these two lower divisions, while two clubs exchanged places in the upper divisions until , when the number increased to three.
Clubs to win their first League titles in the quarter-century following the Second World War were Portsmouth —49 and —50 , Tottenham Hotspur —51 and —61 , founder members of the League Wolverhampton Wanderers —54, —58 and —59 , Chelsea —55 , Ipswich Town —62 and Leeds United — Tottenham Hotspur became the first club in the 20th century to win the League and F.
Cup 'Double' in —61, a season after Wolverhampton Wanderers had come within a whisker of achieving the feat themselves Wolves won the —60 F.
Cup and were runners-up to Burnley in the League by a single point. Post-Second World War changes in league football included the use of white balls in and the first floodlit game played between Portsmouth and Newcastle United in , opening up the possibility of midweek evening matches.
By far the biggest change for league clubs during this era was a new cup competition open to all the members of the League, the Football League Cup, which was held for the first time in —61 to provide clubs with a new source of income.
Aston Villa won the inaugural League Cup and, despite an initial lack of enthusiasm on the part of some other big clubs, the competition became firmly established in the footballing calendar, although it was not until the dawn of the s that all 92 Football League clubs regularly participated in the competition season after season.
Substitutes 1 per team per match were first allowed for injured players in , and for any reason the next year. The first ever Sunday top flight game was between Chelsea and Stoke a week later.
Beginning with the —77 season, the clubs finishing level on points began to be separated according to goal difference the difference between goals scored and goals conceded rather than goal average goals scored divided by goals conceded.
This was an effort to prevent unduly defensive play encouraged by the greater advantage in limiting goals allowed. In the event that clubs had equal points and equal goal differences, priority was given to the club that had scored the most goals.
There has been only one season, —89, when this level of differentiation was necessary to determine the League champion, and this was the occasion of one of the most dramatic nights in League history, when Arsenal beat Liverpool 2—0 at Anfield in the last game of the season to win the League on this tiebreaker — by a single Michael Thomas goal in the final minute of the final game of the season.
Both teams would finish with the same amount the goal difference, but Arsenal scored more goals during the season.
In the Premier League era, the —12 season also had the winner being determined by a tiebreaker; Manchester City finished with a better goal difference than Manchester United.
Two clubs won their first League titles during the s: Nottingham Forest's title in —78 turned out to be the last time a first time champion won the First Division title during The Football League era before the First Division clubs formed the Premier League in The next first time League champion would be Leicester City in the —16 season, the first during the Premier League era.
Another important change was made in , when it was decided to award three points for a win instead of two, a further effort to increase attacking football.
This scoring rule was not added by FIFA to the World Cups until the cup after the perceived dominance of defensive play at Italia The early s also saw a significant decline in league attendances as a result of the recession and the ongoing problem of hooliganism.
This did no favours for the financial position and league standing of numerous clubs, and several — including Wolverhampton Wanderers, Swansea City and Middlesbrough — were almost forced out of business as a result.
The fortunes of the First Division clubs suffered a fresh blow in when all English clubs were banned from European competitions as a result of the Heysel disaster , where rioting involving Liverpool fans at the European Cup final in Belgium resulted in 39 spectator deaths.
At present, there are sixteen clubs that compete in the Football League, playing each other in a home and away series.
At the end of the season, the bottom four teams are relegated to the Gamma Ethniki. The top two teams gain automatic promotion.
Unlike the Super League , clubs in the Football League do not get relegated if the club fails to obtain a license.
All teams in the Football League take part in the Greek Cup. The following 16 clubs are competing in the Football League during the —19 season. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Koriopolis scandal Greek football scandal Greek football clubs in European competitions. Retrieved from " https: Articles with Greek-language external links.
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OFI 3rd title — Panachaiki 1 , Proodeftiki 1 , Philippi Kavala 1. Panserraikos 1 , Edessaikos 2 , Egaleo 1 , Vyzas 1. L Lost against Manchester City on November 4th L Lost against Manchester United on October 6th L Lost against Newcastle United on October 20th W Won against Newcastle United on November 3rd L Lost against Huddersfield Town on October 20th L Lost against Watford on October 27th W Won against Huddersfield Town on November 5th L Lost against Tottenham Hotspur on October 6th W Won against Cardiff City on October 20th L Lost against Liverpool on October 27th L Lost against Cardiff City on November 3rd L Lost against Fulham on October 7th L Lost against Cardiff City on October 20th L Lost against Fulham on October 27th L Lost against Huddersfield Town on November 5th Last updated 9th November at W Won against Manchester City on September 29th D Drew against Chelsea on September 29th W Won against Huddersfield Town on September 29th W Won against Arsenal on September 29th L Lost against Arsenal on September 29th W Won against Everton on September 29th W Won against Newcastle United on September 29th W Won against Wolverhampton Wanderers on September 29th L Lost against Manchester City on September 29th W Won against Cardiff City on September 30th
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