In the first part of understanding professional football in the United Kingdom you learned about the leagues and how they work. There is so much to the leagues that I didn't want to bore you or overwhelm you with everything. Also there is a lot that you need to understand as far as professional football goes in the United Kingdom that I have decided to break up this article into 3 different pieces that way you can organize your thoughts much better.

If you though the leagues were tricky to understand then just wait because we are about to dive into the cups. There are so many cups that are played in the United Kingdom that you probably don't even know all of the names. What many fans of professional football don't know is that each one of these cups are for a different purpose and many times they are teams and stadiums that hold the cups in order to crown a certain club.

Cups

First off you need to understand that each football association will conduct their own national cup so there will be 4 different cups. These 4 main cups are the FA Cup which is run by England, the Scottish Cup which is run by Scotland, the Welsh Cup which is run by Wales and the Irish Cup that is ran by Northern Ireland. In past years these 4 main cups were very accepting on what clubs could participate but that was all changed here recently. The reason for this change is to stay true to the name of the cup and actual have clubs in the nations leagues playing for the title.

Not every cup that is played is for a particular nation but more of an open cup. These cups aren't played each year and often times will not even take place if only a certain few even want to participate. Something that has been tough to figure out is the fact that even though some clubs are in the nation they still don't want to participate in the cups and this often times makes the fans mad. As a fan you need to understand the business side of professional football and know that if a club is going to get blown out of every game it would make more sense for them to sit out the cup and stay on the practice field.

Another thing you should know about the cuts is that there is a international cup played every year in which the national teams will split their home games with their away games. The reason why you need to know this is because the United Kingdom has 4 different teams that play in this, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

We are almost done and you almost know everything you need to about professional football in the United Kingdom. The next part to this 3 part article will be on the environment in the United Kingdom and why you need to know about it. This is something that even the citizens of the country don't understand.