Written by Phillip Bupp at Bloguin
Reported in an exclusive to Henry Winter and The Times, the English FA and Chairman Greg Dyke will recommend to the English Premier League that the League drop from 20 to 18 teams in order to alleviate the amount of games that are played by the top English teams.
For years, there has been a growing trend that English teams are struggling in European and international competitions. The English National Team has been rather lackluster in international tournaments since the 90’s. English club teams have been, for the most part, haven’t fared well in UEFA tournaments compared to teams in Spain and Germany and are in danger of losing their fourth Champions League spot to Italy. The Premier League and the FA have tried to figure out how to solve this problem in English soccer and the FA believes they have by lowering the number of teams in the top league.
This reduction of teams in the Premier League is not without precedent. When the Premier League started in 1992, there were 22 teams. That number got reduced to 20 at the start of the 1995-96 EPL season.
Obviously, there are some ramifications when reducing the number of teams in the Premier League. For one, what does this do to the lower leagues? There are already 24 teams in the League Championship, League 1 and League 2, will that add a 25th and/or 26th team or does this go all the way to the end and more teams will be relegated in League 2 to round out the numbers.
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