English football league system

It also often happens that the Premier Division of a Regional Feeder League (Step 7 or Level 11) has its constitution given to it by the FA.

The pyramid for women's football in England runs separately into ten tiers.

Some England-based men's clubs play outside the English football league system.

The twelve founding members were six from Lancashire (Accrington, Blackburn Rovers, Burnley, Bolton Wanderers, Everton and Preston North End) and six from the Midlands (Aston Villa, Derby County, Notts County, Stoke, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers).

The system consists of a pyramid of leagues, bound together by the principle of promotion and relegation.

In addition to sporting performance, promotion is usually contingent on meeting criteria set by the higher league, especially concerning appropriate facilities and finances.

In theory, it is possible for a lowly local amateur club to achieve annual promotions and within a few years rise to the pinnacle of the English game and become champions of the Premier League.

They later reneged on the plan to include Premier League "B" teams in the new division[2] and shortly thereafter scrapped the idea altogether.

These leagues are independent entities with no promotion or relegation involving the football pyramid.

This division, like the four above, is a full-time professional competition, although some promoted clubs retain part-time status.

Being members of a league at a particular level also affects eligibility for Cup, or single-elimination, competitions.

This excludes some tournaments marked "Senior Cups", which often are competitions between teams representing top professional clubs in a given district, and may be little more than derbies, such as the Gloucestershire Cup, which originally included all teams in Gloucestershire, but then came to be contested as a Bristol derby.

Until 2020, level 11 divisions were designated as "step 7", but that year were re-designated as "Regional Feeder Leagues".