Wales Cymru Premier Betting Tips

About Cymru Premier

The Cymru Premier is the national football league of Wales. It includes both professional and semi-professional clubs and is at the top of the Welsh football league system. Prior to 2002, the league was known as the League of Wales, but changed its name to the Welsh Premier League as part of a sponsorship deal. The league was renamed the Cymru Premier for the 2019-20 season.

Original league

The league was formed in October 1991 by Alun Evans, the general secretary of the Football Association of Wales, who believed that the Welsh national football team was under threat from FIFA. There was a permanent seat on the International Football Association Board (IFAB) for the FAW, along with the three other home nations associations (The Football Association, Irish Football Association and Scottish Football Association). There was a belief that many FIFA members were upset about this and were pushing for the four associations to merge into one team.

The new league was formed for the 1992-93 season and officially launched on August 15, 1992. Although a member of FIFA and UEFA, the FAW had not organised a national league at that time, only the Welsh Cup. Traditionally, Wales' strongest teams had always played in the English leagues.

Aberdare Athletic, Cardiff City, Merthyr Town, Newport County, Swansea City and Wrexham were all members of the Football League, while many other Welsh clubs played in the Northern Premier League and Southern Football League.

Due to historically poor north-south transport links within Wales, it was often easier for Welsh clubs to travel eastto west, so Welsh clubs tended to look to the east of England for competition. Many of the best semi-professional teams in Wales played in the English league system. Bangor City was a founder member of the Alliance Premier League (now the National League) in 1979 and reached the final of the FA Trophy in 1984 before joining the League of Wales in 1992.

Other newcomers

The formation of the League of Wales marked the beginning of a bitter dispute between the Football Association of Wales (FAW) and the non-league clubs that wanted to remain part of the English football pyramid. The 'Irate Eight', as they were known, consisted of Bangor City, Barry Town, Caernarfon Town, Colwyn Bay, Merthyr Tydfil, Newport, Newtown and Rhyl. At that time Cardiff City, Swansea City and Wrexham were playing in the Football League and the FAW decided to allow these teams to continue playing in the English system, although they continued to compete in the Welsh Cup for a few seasons.

The success of these clubs in the Welsh Cup competitions led to their frequent participation in the European Cup Winners' Cup, although Wrexham had never played higher than the Second Division and Swansea had spent only two seasons in the First Division in the early 1980s, while Cardiff had played semi-regularly in the First Division from the 1920s until 1962. Bangor City, Newtown, and Rhyl reluctantly agreed to join the League of Wales before its inaugural season.

However, because Rhyl had belatedly applied to join the league, they were placed in the second tier of the pyramid system. Due to FAW sanctions, the remaining five clubs were forced to play their home games in England. Barry Town joined the Welsh pyramid in time for the 1993-94 season after a season in exile at Worcester City. A court ruling in 1995 allowed the remaining four clubs to return to Wales for their home games while remaining in the English system.

Caernarfon Town joined the League of Wales for the 1995-96 season despite this victory. Colwyn Bay remained in the English pyramid for another 24 years before moving to the Welsh pyramid in 2019. That left just two of the Irate Eight - Newport County, which won promotion to the Football League in 2013, and Merthyr Town, the successor club to Merthyr Tydfil after its dissolution in 2010. Wrexham was relegated from the Football League in 2008 and has yet to be promoted again 13 years later.

Conversely, the now-defunct English team Oswestry Town was admitted to the League of Wales in 1996 and currently The New Saints are based in Oswestr. Another English club, Chester City, whose stadium sits on the border between Englandand Wales, applied to join the Welsh Premier League after being expelled from the Football Conference in 2010, but was disbanded almost immediately afterwards (its successor team, Chester F.C., decided to reapply within the English system).

Renewed call for Welsh teams

Football teams from Wales currently playing in English football include: Cardiff City, Swansea City, Newport County, Wrexham, and Merthyr Town. Some have called for all Welsh teams to be included in the Cymru Premier, but especially the lower-tier teams Merthyr Town F.C. and Wrexham A.F.C., which both play in the English non-league. In an online poll by "Y Clwb Peldroed' on Twitter, 56.7% were in favour of Merthyr Town F.C. joining Welsh football.

Current structure

The season is divided into two phases, ending with a playoff at the end of the season to determine Wales' fourth European team for the following year.

Phase 1

Phase 1 runs from MD1 in August to MD22 in mid-January. Each team plays the other teams in the league twice, once at home and once away, for a total of twenty-two matches. At the conclusion of Phase 1, the league is split in two, with the top six teams forming the Championship Conference and the bottom six teams forming the Playoff Conference. All points accumulated by the teams in Phase 1 will be brought forward to Phase 2

Phase 2

Phase 2 then runs from MD23 in early February through MD32 in late April. Each team plays the other five teams in their conference twice more, home and away, for a total of thirty-two games. The team at the top of the Championship Conference after thirty-two games is the league champion and qualifies for the UEFA Champions League. The Championship Conference runners-up automatically qualify for the UEFA Europa League, while the remaining teams qualify for the European playoffs at the end of the season.

The two worst teams in the Playoff Conference are relegated. The team that tops the Playoff Conference (seventh place in the league table) takes part in the European playoffs. Note that teams in the Playoff Conference cannot finish higher than seventh in the standings.

European Playoffs

The five teams ranked 3-7 compete in the European playoffs at the end of the season. the 6th receives the 7th in a quarterfinal. The winner travels to the 3rd placed team for the first semi-final, while the 4th receives the 5th. The winners will then meet the highest ranked team in the final.

The winner qualifies for the UEFA Europa League. If one of the five teams has already qualified for Europe by winning the JD Welsh Cup, the remaining four teams will contest the playoffs directly from the semifinals.

If one of the top two teams wins the JD Welsh Cup, the third-placed team automatically takes a place in the UEFA Europa League. The remaining four teams then contest the playoffs directly from the semifinals.

European competition

The champion of the Welsh Premier League qualifies for the UEFA Champions League along with the champions of the other European leagues. The second-placed team qualifies for the first qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League. The teams in 3rd to 7th place then play for the second European spot in the play-off. A place in the second round of the Europa League is also awarded to the winner of the Welsh Cup.

If the Welsh Cup winners have already qualified for Europe via their league placing (i.e., by finishing in the top two and winning the cup) or if the Welsh Cup winners have achieved a playoff place, then the remaining four teams contest the playoff.

Results in Europe have been mixed - some notable successes such as Barry Town's passage into the first round of the UEFA Cup (a 3-3 draw with Aberdeen at Jenner Park), Bangor City's win over FC Sartid of Yugoslavia and Barry's 3-1 win over FC Porto in the UEFA Champions League (although they lost 9-3 on aggregate) are offset by some heavy defeats, such as The New Saints' 12-1 loss to Amica Wronki of Poland. As of June 2019, the Cymru Premier is ranked 46th out of 55 members in the UEFA coefficient.