Football In UK

Football in the United Kingdom

Football is the United Kingdom’s most popular sport. It was developed in the UK and still retains an important place in the lives of many British people.

Organisation of the game in the UK

Like many sports in the UK, football is rarely managed on a UK-wide basis, but instead on a separate basis for each of the Home Nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Each has its own national team and its own league system. However, there are times when a UK-wide approach to the sport is taken (see below).

Football associations

With football being organised separately for the four Home Nations, there are also four national football associations: The Football Association (England and crown dependencies), the Scottish Football Association, the Football Association of Wales and the Irish Football Association (which covers Northern Ireland and should not be confused with the Football Association of Ireland, which covers the Republic of Ireland). The associations are responsible for the overall management of football within their respective nation.

The Football Association (FA) was founded first in 1863. Its original geographical remit was not clear and there was no specification of whether it covered just England, the entire UK or even the entire world. That question was answered for it as other national football associations were formed (starting with the Scottish Football Association (SFA) in 1873) followed by an international association, FIFA, which the FA eventually joined.

The four British associations play an important part in football worldwide, as they take up four of the seats on the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which determines the laws of football (the other four seats are occupied by FIFA).

National teams

There is no United Kingdom national football team. Instead, there are separate ones for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which play completely independently of each other. There are sometimes issues about which team players are eligible for (as all the players will have simply British passports), but a player is generally eligible for whichever nation he, his parents or grandparents were born in (in the case of these being different nations, then he can choose). Players from crown dependencies (like the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands), which are technically not in the UK are eligible for all four teams (e.g. Matt Le Tissier and Graeme Le Saux).

There have, however, been times when the entire UK has competed as one team. The most noticeable example is the Summer Olympic Games (where the UK competes as one country under the name Great Britain). In the early years, the Olympic football competition was contested between amateur sides and the UK Olympic Committee agreed to let the amateur England team represent the entire UK. Thus the team was not really representative of the entire UK, but nonetheless played under that banner. More recently the Olympic competition has been played by under-23s teams and the UK has not sent any representative. This is mostly due to FIFA pressure (their argument being that the UK should either compete as four separate teams or one combined one and not both). However, since London won the 2012 Summer Olympics, there have been increasing calls for a British team to compete. Sepp Blatter has even stated publicly that a British Olympic football team would not affect the independence of the four home nations – England, Wales and Northern Ireland have tentatively said they are willing to move the idea forward, but Scotland appear firmly against it.

Some arguments have been put forward for the UK having just one team to represent it. The outspoken politician Tony Banks was one such advocate. Nearly all such arguments come from within England, and are spurned by members of the other nations, who consider it an impingement on their sovereignty. As yet, no such idea has got off the drawing board and all four football associations are very much against it.

Matches between the UK teams

The UK teams have played each other more times than any other footballing nations in the world. The world’s first international football match was played between Scotland and England in Glasgow in 1872 (a 0-0 draw). From then on, all four teams started playing regular friendlies against each other.

In 1883 a formal competition between the UK’s teams, the British Home Championship, was introduced, guaranteeing that each team would play the other three at least once a season. The Championship was discontinued in 1984, partly due to crowd trouble. Since then the teams have played each other mainly when drawn together in international competitions such as the European Championship or the World Cup. A list is given below.

Matches between the UK teams since 1984

Since 1984, when the British Home Championship ended, there have been a number of games played between the four Home Nations.

Resurrection of the Home Championship

Since the end of the British Home Championship, there have been many calls for it to be restored to the schedule. One argument is that it would replace so-called “meaningless friendlies” with a proper tournament that would raise the interest of both the players and fans. However, there has been a lack of enthusiasm for such a proposal, particularly from England; as time has passed, the Football Association has grown in commercial power beyond that of the other three home associations, so that it could be claimed that friendlies against major footballing nations from Europe and South America are worth more than playing the home nations. In December 2006, Lawrie Sanchez suggested that a Celtic tournament be organised, featuring the three home Celtic nations plus the Republic of Ireland[1]. This was further elaborated in February 2007 when Alex McLeish, the newly appointed manager of Scotland, expressed interest in playing against the home nations and the Republic of Ireland. Accepting that England would likely not be interested in a new Home Championship, he said “If the English FA are thinking about opposition for the new Wembley, I hope we’re in their thoughts”. Lawrie Sanchez at the same time stated that the IFA hierarchy were supportive of a new Home Championship, while the SFA expressed guarded interest. Both England and Wales were less enthusiastic, stating that with the number of friendlies played each year it would “be difficult to see how the Home Nations would fit in”[2].

Football in the crown dependencies and the overseas territories

Although technically not part of the UK, football in the crown dependencies is governed by The Football Association. Nevertheless players from the crown dependencies can play in any of the four British teams, while at the same time the crown dependencies also have their own teams:

Overseas territories are not technically part of the UK either, and they have their own teams. Some of the overseas territories have full or associate membership in the corresponding regional federations:

League systems

There are separate club football league systems for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, there is a lot of overlapping between the systems, with clubs often playing outside of their country’s respective system. This is partially due to logisitical geography, but mainly because the first league, The Football League, was originally intended to be UK-wide. However, Scotland and Ireland (all of which was part of the UK then) developed their own systems soon after. Wales did not get a national league until 1992 (though regional leagues existed prior to that), which explains why so many Welsh clubs play in what is now regarded as the English system. There are proposals for a UK-wide British Football League, but this currently seems a relatively distant possibility.

The English football league system includes hundreds of interlinked leagues, consisting of thousands of divisions. The FA Premier League is at the top, followed by The Football League and then the Football Conference, where the structure starts to become regional and includes the Northern Premier League, the Southern League, the Isthmian League and many more besides. The Welsh clubs of Cardiff City, Colwyn Bay, Merthyr Tydfil, Newport County, Swansea City and Wrexham play in the English system.

The Scottish football league system is much smaller, with just two national leagues: the Scottish Premier League (SPL) and Scottish Football League. There are, however, other regional leagues that are not connected to the national system, most notably the Highland Football League. One English club, Berwick Rangers, plays in the Scottish system. Gretna, based in Scotland, moved from the English to the Scottish league system in 2002.

The Welsh football league system includes the League of Wales and a number of regional leagues.

The Northern Irish football league system includes the Irish Football League. One Northern Irish club, Derry City, plays their football outside of the UK in the Republic of Ireland football league system.

High finishers in the top league of each system may qualify for a Europe-wide UEFA competition, such as the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup or UEFA Intertoto Cup.

Cup competitions

There are a multitude of knockout club cup competitions. Again, these are organised on an English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish basis. Many carry qualification for the UEFA Cup for the winners.

Each football association runs its own national cup. So there is the FA Cup (England), the Scottish FA Cup, the Welsh Cup and the Irish Cup. Traditionally, these cups have been the most liberal about who they accept, with many teams from outside that nation (and/or league system) entering. More recently rules have been tightened, with the competitions only open to teams who play in that nation’s football league system.

There are also a number of other cups that have more stringent requirements but carry less prestige, including the Football League Cup (England), Scottish League Cup, FAW Premier Cup (Wales), Irish League Cup and County Antrim Shield (Northern Ireland). Some past cups have even crossed UK boundaries, such as the Anglo-Scottish Cup and the Setanta Cup which four teams from Northern Ireland play four teams from the Republic of Ireland.

“Battle of Britain”

There have been several occasions when clubs from the four home nations have played each other in European competition. The matches were either played over two legs or in groups where teams play each other twice, the aggregate scores counting both matches in each pairing are listed below.

England v Scotland

England v Wales

England v Northern Ireland

Scotland v Wales

Scotland v Northern Ireland

Wales v Northern Ireland

National Football Museums

See also

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