The programme begins with the host and six regular in-studio pundits previewing the weekend's matches, reviewing recent results and debating current issues in football.
The graphics display a vidiprinter and cycle through current scores in the English and Scottish leagues, with Simon Thomas providing commentary on the events as they unfold.
Where a video link is used, it shows the reporter facing the pitch so that the stand is in the background, in line with the FA blackout which prohibits broadcasting live football during those hours.
After the 3 pm games finish, the classified football results are read by Alan Lambourn and this is followed by a run-through of the updated league tables.
For the final 45 minutes of the programme the studio pundits discuss the games they have been watching, and post-match interviews with players and managers are shown.
A programme with the same format is also broadcast when there are a number of midweek games, such as on UEFA Champions League nights, in which case it is known as Soccer Special.
From the 2015–2016 season, Stelling started presenting Soccer Special again as Sky lost the rights to Champions League coverage to BT Sport.
One notable difference is that unlike the normal Soccer Saturday broadcasts, the goals that are being scored can be shown live on television as there is no blackout on those days.
From 2021, Sports Sunday began to show the vidiprinter on screen throughout the programme, which by now was on air from 12:00–18:00, on which the latest British and European scores are displayed.
Rodney Marsh was a regular pundit, known for his outspoken views, until being sacked by Sky Sports in early 2005 after a joke referencing the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
In August 2020, regular studio pundits Matt Le Tissier, Phil Thompson and Charlie Nicholas were controversially sacked from the programme.
In the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso, character Roy Kent serves as a pundit on the show alongside Stelling and Kamara.