Premier League teams in London
London like many capital cities in the World is a hotbed for sport and the Premier League is no different. With a population of 9.65 million people (2023) that's a lot of potential football fans so in this post we're going to look at the London Premier League teams.
How many Premier League teams are in London?
For the 2023/24 Premier League season London currently has 7 Premier League teams so if you live in London and support one of the teams you can look forward to 6 local derbies with neighbouring London clubs.
London currently boasts a massive 17 teams playing in professional football/soccer leagues: as we now know 7 play in the Premier League, 6 in the Football League and 4 in the National League.
It's also home to Wembley Stadium, the national team stadium of England.
Which Premier League teams are based in London?
The 7 Premier League teams currently based in London are Spurs, Arsenal, West Ham, Brentford, Fulham, Chelsea and Crystal Palace.
Brentford & Fulham have flirted between the Premier League and Championship and now look like well established Premier League teams but the other 5 teams have long Premier League histories with Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur winning a total of 103 titles and trophies between them over the years.
Arsenal were also the first London Premier League team to win the Premier League during the 1997–98 season and are only the second team in English football history to go unbeaten in a whole season during the 2003–04 season, this legendary feat earned them the name "The invisibles"!
All London teams who've played in the Premier League
Since the formation of the Premier League a total of X London teams have played in the Premier League, these teams are:
- Arsenal: 31 Premier League seasons
- Brentford: 4 Premier League seasons
- Charlton: 8 Premier League seasons
- Chelsea: 31 Premier League seasons
- Crystal Palace: 14 Premier League seasons
- Fulham: 18 Premier League seasons
- QPR: 6 Premier League seasons
- Tottenham: 31 Premier League seasons
- West Ham: 28 Premier League seasons
- Wimbledon: 7 Premier League seasons
- Reading (although technically it's own town on the outskirts of London): 3 Premier League seasons
Which is the oldest Premier League team in London?
Fulham was founded in 1879 and are the oldest London Premier League team still playing professional football although at the time they were not professional. Despite yoyoing in and out of the top flight over the years Fulham seem to have now established themselves as a stable Premier League team having been promoted for the 2022/23 Premier League season and finishing in a respectable 10 position.
Not too many years behind Fulham were Arsenal who in 1891 became London's first team to turn professional under the name Royal Arsenal before changing their name to Woolwich Arsenal in 1893 and eventually become Arsenal in 1913.
London is also the birthplace of The Football Associations (The FA) which is the oldest football association in the World having been found in 1863. The origins of football or "ball games" can be trace back many 100s of years prior to this but it wasn't until 1863 when The FA was formed that rules were established and football began to spread Worldwide.
How many Premier League titles have London teams won?
We already know Arsenal were the first London team to claim the Premier League title and they have won it a total of 3 times in the 1997, 2001 and 2003 Premier League seasons.
However, the London based Premier League team with the most Premier League titles is actually Chelsea having won the Premier League 5 times in the 2005, 2006, 2010, 2015 and 2017 Premier League seasons with the likes of Lampard, Terry, Drogba, Makelele in their prime and of course Jose Mourinho as manager this really was a "golden" period for Chelsea!
Tottenham have also won the top flight title twice before it was rebranded as the Premier League having won the then First Division in 1950–51 and 1960–61.
London premier league teams map
