AFC Wimbledon

Arsenal

Brentford

Charlton

Wealdstone

Barnet

Bromley

Chelsea

Crystal Palace

Fulham

Leyton Orient

Millwall

Queens Park Rangers

Sutton United

Tottenham Hotspur

Wembley Stadium

West Ham

class=notpageimage|

As of the2025–26 season, there are sixteen teams playing in professional leagues inLondon: seven play in thePremier League, seven inthe Football League, two in theNational League.Wembley Stadium is also marked.

Association football is the most popular sport, both in terms of participants and spectators, inLondon.^[1] London has several of England's leading men's football clubs. The city is the home of sixteen men's professional clubs, several dozen men's semi-professional clubs and several hundred men's amateur clubs regulated by theLondon Football Association,Middlesex County Football Association,Surrey County Football Association,Amateur Football Alliance and theKent County Football Association.^[2] Most London clubs are named after the district in which they play (or used to play), and sharerivalries with each other.

London football teams have won a total of 21English first division titles, 42FA Cups, 12EFL Cups, 29Community Shields^[a], 16English second division titles, 2Club World Cups, 2Champions Leagues, 5Cup Winners' Cups, 5UEFA Cups/Europa Leagues, 2Conference Leagues, 1Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, 2Super Cups, and 2Intertoto Cups. In the1989–90 season, eight of London's professional clubs were in the top tier of English Football at the same time, meaning that 40% of the member clubs of theFirst Division that season were based in one city.

Fulham was founded in 1879. The club isLondon's oldest football club still playing professionally.Royal Arsenal were London's first club to turn professional in 1891. The club became Woolwich Arsenal in 1893 and then became Arsenal Football Club in 1913. Arsenal are only the second English club (afterPreston North End of1888–89), and the only London club to go anentire League season unbeaten, in the2003–04 season. Arsenal have won TheFA Cup a record 14 times; they were the first London team to win theFootball League First Division in the1930–31 season and the first London club to win thePremier League in the1997–98 season. They were also the first London club to reach theEuropean Cup/UEFA Champions League final, which they did in the2005–06 season, though losing1–2 toBarcelona.

Chelsea is the only club from London to win theUEFA Champions League, securing the title in both2012 and2021. On 15 May 2013, Chelsea won theUEFA Europa League to become thefourth club and the first British side to win all three main UEFA club competitions. In 2025, Chelsea became the first club to have won all four UEFA main club competitions; the European Cup/UEFA Champions League, the European/UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, the UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League, and theUEFA Europa Conference League/UEFA Conference League.

Chelsea is also the only London club to have participated in and win theFIFA Club World Cup in2021 and2025. Previously, they wererunners-up in2012, losing toCorinthians.

Tottenham Hotspur were the first British club to win a European trophy, winning theCup Winners Cup in1963. Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur are traditionally London's most successful teams. Between them, they have won a total of 103 titles and trophies.Wembley Stadium (1923), England'snational stadium, was in London. The site of the1966 World Cup Final and numerous European cup finals, it was the home venue of theEngland national football team and had traditionally hosted the FA CupFinal since1923. Wembley closed in 2000 and its replacement opened in 2007.

The playing of team ball games (almost certainly including football) was first recorded in London by William FitzStephen around 1174–1183. He described the activities of London youths during the annual festival ofShrove Tuesday.

"After lunch all of the city's youth would go out into the fields to take part in a ball game. The students of each school have their own ball; the workers from each city craft are also carrying their balls. Older citizens, fathers, and the wealthy would come on horseback to watch their juniors competing, and to relive their own youth vicariously: you can see their inner passions aroused as they watch the action and get caught up in the fun being had by the carefree adolescents."^[3]

Regular references to the game occurred throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, including the first reference to the word "football" in English when it was outlawed by KingHenry IV of England in 1409. Early games were probably disorganised and violent. In the sixteenth century, the headmaster ofSt Paul's SchoolRichard Mulcaster is credited with takingmob football and transforming it into organised and refereed team football. In 1581 he wrote about his game of football, which included smaller teams, referees, set positions and even a coach.

The modern game of football was first codified in 1863 in London and subsequently spread worldwide. Key to the establishment of the modern game was LondonerEbenezer Cobb Morley who was a founding member ofthe Football Association, the oldest football organisation in the world. Morley wrote to theBell's Life newspaper proposing a governing body for football which led directly to the first meeting at theFreemasons' Tavern in central London of the FA. He wrote the first set of rules of true modernfootball at his house inBarnes. The modern passing form of the game was invented in London in the early 1870s by theRoyal Engineers A.F.C.^[4][5] (albeit the club were based inChatham, Kent).

Prior to the first meeting of the Football Association in the Freemasons' Tavern inGreat Queen Street, London on 26 October 1863, there were no universally accepted rules for the playing of the game of football. The founder members present at the first meeting wereBarnes,Civil Service,Crusaders, Forest of Leytonstone (later to becomeWanderers),N.N. (No Names) Club (Kilburn), the originalCrystal Palace,Blackheath, Kensington School,Percival House (Blackheath),Surbiton andBlackheath Proprietary School;Charterhouse sent its captain, B.F. Hartshorne, but declined the offer to join. All of the 12 founding clubs were from London though many are sincedefunct or now playrugby union.

A rise in the popularity of football in London dates from the end of the 19th century, when a fall in church attendance^[specify] left many people searching for a way to spend their weekend leisure time.^[6] In 1882 theLondon Football Association was set up. Over the next 25 years clubs sprang up all over the capital, and the majority of these teams are still thriving in the 21st century. Of those clubs currently playing in theFootball League, Fulham is generally considered to be London's oldest, having been founded in 1879.^[7] However,Isthmian League sideCray Wanderers is the oldest extant club in all of theGreater London area, having been founded in 1860 inSt Mary Cray^[8] | (then part ofKent but now in theLondon Borough of Bromley) and are still affiliated to theKent County Football Association.

Initially, football in London was dominated by amateur teams, drawing their membership from formerpublic schoolboys but gradually working-class sides came to the forefront. Royal Arsenal was London's first professional team, becoming so in 1891,^[9] a move which saw them boycotted by the amateur London Football Association. Other London clubs soon followed Arsenal's footsteps in turning professional, includingMillwall (1893),Tottenham Hotspur (1895), Fulham (1898) andWest Ham (1898).

In the meantime, Woolwich Arsenal (formerly Royal Arsenal) went on to be the first London club to join the Football League, in 1893. The following year, theSouthern League was founded and many of its members would go on to join the Football League. In 1901 Tottenham Hotspur became the first club from London to win the FA Cup in the professional era, although it would not be until 1931 that a London side would win the Football League, the team in question being Arsenal (having moved toHighbury in 1913 and dropping the "Woolwich" from their name).

In the1989–90 season, eight of London's professional clubs were in the top tier of English Football at the same time, forming 40% of theFirst Division that season.

Arsenal

Charlton Athletic

Chelsea

Crystal Palace

Millwall

Tottenham Hotspur

Queens Park Rangers

Wimbledon

class=notpageimage|

There were eight London clubs in First Division in the1989–90 season

Arsenal, Chelsea, and Tottenham are regarded as three of the Premier League's current "big six" alongside Liverpool, Manchester United, and Manchester City. In the two seasons immediately proceeding the start of this top six run, Arsenal and Chelsea became the first pair of London clubs to finish first and second in the top flight, with Arsenal winning in2003–04, and Chelsea winning in2004–05. The2009–10 season saw Chelsea (1st), Arsenal (3rd) and Tottenham (4th) all finish in the top four, qualifying all three of these London teams into the sameUEFA Champions League competition.

Before the1996–97 season, when Chelsea started its run of consistent high finishes, the two highest profile London clubs were Arsenal and their long-standingNorth London rivals Tottenham Hotspur, both of whom were considered to be members of English football's "big five" (with Manchester United, Liverpool and Everton) for much of the post-war period.

The table below lists all London clubs in the top eight tiers of theEnglish football league system: from the top division (the Premier League), down to Step 4 of theNational League System. League status is correct for the2025–26 season.

Below the eighth tier, numerous London clubs are represented within theCombined Counties League (SW),Essex Senior League (NE),Southern Counties East Football League (SE) and theSpartan South Midlands League (NW).

There are also a huge number of minor London clubs playing outside the top eight levels of English football.Hackney Marshes in east London, home to many amateur sides, is reportedly the single largest collection offootball pitches in the world, with 100 separate pitches.^[1]

Manyassociation football clubs fromLondon are also successful on social media with a large international fanbase. Three of the top 20 most popular sports clubs on Instagram in the world, as of 23 November 2023, are fromLondon:^[11]

The figures in bold represent the most times this competition has been won by an English team.
Shared Community Shield results listed as wins.
 * TheInter-Cities Fairs Cup is not considered a UEFA competition, and hence Arsenal's record in the Fairs Cup is not considered part of its European record (although they won it in1970, at a time when participationwas based on league position).

• Titles (clubs): 21 (3)
• Runners-up (clubs): 23 (5)

Outside of those five, the highest league positions of London clubs which have played in the top-flight are 3rd (Crystal Palace,West Ham United), 5th (Brentford), 6th (Wimbledon), 7th (Fulham), 10th (Millwall), and 22nd (Leyton Orient).

There have been seven all-London FA Cup finals the first being in 1967 between Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea. Arsenal have won three all-London affairs, Spurs and West Ham both two. Chelsea have featured in four (a joint record with Arsenal) losing all four.

• Titles (clubs): 42 (9)
• Runners-up (clubs): 25 (10)

• Titles (clubs): 12 (4)
• Runners-up (clubs): 18 (5)

• Titles (clubs): 29^[b] (5)
• Runners-up (clubs): 24 (7)

• Titles (clubs): 16 (9)
• Runners-up (clubs): 18 (9)

• Titles (clubs): 14 (5)
• Runners-up (clubs): 8 (6)

• Titles (clubs): 2 (1)
• Runners-up (clubs): 3 (3)

• Titles (clubs): 5 (4)
• Runners-up (clubs): 3 (2)

• Titles (clubs): 5 (2)
• Runners-up (clubs): 4 (3)

• Titles (clubs): 2 (2)
• Runners-up (clubs): 0 (0)

• Titles (clubs): 1 (1)
• Runners-up (clubs): 1 (1)

• Titles (clubs): 2 (1)
• Runners-up (clubs): 5 (3)

• Titles (clubs): 2 (2)

• Titles (clubs): 2 (1)
• Runners-up (clubs): 1 (1)

Wembley Stadium, in north-west London, is the national football stadium, and is traditionally the home of theFA Cup Final as well asEngland's home internationals. Theoriginal stadium of the same name was closed in 2000 in order to be demolished and completely rebuilt, and reopened in 2007; during the closureCardiff'sMillennium Stadium was the venue for cup finals, while England played at various venues around the country. Wembley was one of the venues for the1966 FIFA World Cup, as well asUEFA Euro 1996 and2020, hosting the final of all three tournaments. It also was the venue for theEuropean Cup final in 1968, 1978, 1992, 2011 and 2013. With a 90,000-capacity, it isthe second largest stadium in Europe.

Most clubs in London have their own stadium, although some clubs share, and some clubs may temporarily take up a tenancy at another's ground due to their own ground being redeveloped. The largest operational football stadium in London apart from Wembley isTottenham Hotspur Stadium, with a capacity of 62,850. Other large stadiums include West Ham United'sLondon Stadium (62,500), Arsenal'sEmirates Stadium (60,704) and Chelsea'sStamford Bridge (40,343). There are 10 stadiums in London (apart from Wembley) with capacities over 18,000.

London is the location of the headquarters ofthe Football Association, at Wembley Stadium (formerlySoho Square andLancaster Gate), while the Premier League's offices are located inMarylebone. The Football League maintains its headquarters inPreston, although its commercial offices are based in Marylebone as well.

• Sport in London
• Football in England
• List of football clubs in England by competitive honours won

• Football in London
• History of football in England

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from December 2020
• Articles needing more detailed references
• Use British English from October 2012
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English