THIS IS THE HISTORY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE ENGLISH LEAGUE
The English League, which was founded in 1888, was originally called the Football League. The English Premier League is the oldest football league in the world. The Football League is the highest caste football competition in England from the year this league was founded until 1992.
Since 1995 the Football League has had 72 clubs and is divided evenly into three divisions, known as The Championship, League One and League Two. Promotion and relegation between divisions is a major feature of the League and was extended to allow the top Championship club to swap places with the lowest club in the Premier League.
In 1992 the Premier League was formed, this marked the end of the Football League which had been running for 104 years, the Premier League running with 1 division and the Football League with three divisions. There was no change in the format of the competition, the number of teams competing, promotion and relegation between the Premier League and First Division remained the same as the old First and Second Division format.
The first 22 members of the Premier League are Arsenal, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Coventry City, Crystal Palace, Everton, Ipswich Town, Leeds United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Middlesbrough, Norwich City, Nottingham Forest, Oldham Athletic, Queens Park Rangers, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur and Wimbledon.
Due to pressure by FIFA on domestic leagues to reduce the number of clubs competing in the Premier League, the number of clubs was reduced to 20 in 1995 when four teams were relegated from the league and only two teams were promoted.
On 8 June 2006, FIFA requested that all major European leagues, including Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga be reduced to 18 teams by the start of the 2007/08 season. But the Premier League still plays with 20 teams.
source: soccer