The Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short, or the npower Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the highest division of The Football League and second-highest division overall in the English football league system after the Premier League.
The Football League Championship was introduced for the 2004–05 season, having been previously known as the Football League First Division. According to Deloitte, in the 2004–05 season it was the wealthiest non-top flight football division in the world, and the sixth richest division in Europe.
The winners of the Football League Championship receive the Football League Championship trophy which is the same trophy as the old First Division (now the Premier League) Champions were handed prior to the Premier League's inception in the 1992–93 season.
At present (2012/2013 season), Ipswich Town have held the longest tenure in the Championship, having not been promoted or relegated from the division since the 2002–03 season.
Read more about Football League Championship: History, Structure of The League, Top Scorers
Famous quotes containing the words football and/or league:
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“Stereotypes fall in the face of humanity. You toodle along, thinking that all gay men wear leather after dark and should never, ever be permitted around a Little League field. And then one day your best friend from college, the one your kids adore, comes out to you.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)