Football competitions worldwide

Every kick-off time on this site is already converted to Thailand time, so there is nothing to add or subtract. Most European leagues play from mid-afternoon to evening in their own time zone, which lands in the evening and late night here. Weekend fixtures from England tend to fall at a comfortable hour; midweek European ties and the late Spanish and Italian slots run considerably later, some of them into the early morning.

What confuses people is that a league's kick-off time shifts by an hour twice a year while its own schedule never changes. Europe observes daylight saving time, starting on the last Sunday in March and ending on the last Sunday in October. Thailand sits at UTC+7 all year and never changes. The gap between the two therefore widens and narrows twice a year, and it is our side that sees the time move, not theirs.

Asian leagues work the other way round. Japan's J.League, South Korea's K League and Thai League play in time zones close to ours, so their matches fall in the afternoon and early evening here — watchable without losing a night's sleep. None of those countries observes daylight saving either, so their times stay put.

European leagues follow almost the same calendar: they open around mid-August and finish in late May the following year. Along the way come international breaks in roughly September, October, November and March, when club football pauses for a week or two.

Late December and early January is where the leagues diverge most visibly. England plays its densest run of the year, with a Boxing Day programme and New Year fixtures, while Germany takes the longest winter break of the big five. Spain and Italy break more briefly. If you follow a German club and its page goes quiet for several weeks around then, that is the calendar, not missing data.

A second group runs on the calendar year instead. The J.League, K League and Major League Soccer open early in the year and finish late in it, which means they are mid-season through June and July while Europe is shut down — the period when this index is at its most useful, because what remains on it is what is actually being played. Thai League follows the European calendar, August to May.

National-team tournaments rotate on their own cycle. The World Cup and the European Championship are each held every four years, two years apart, while the Nations League and qualifying campaigns fill the international breaks in between.

England's Premier League, Spain's LaLiga and Italy's Serie A each run 20 clubs playing 38 matches a season. Germany's Bundesliga and France's Ligue 1 run 18 clubs playing 34, Ligue 1 having cut from 20 to 18 in 2023-24. That number matters when reading a table: the maximum points available differ, so comparing point totals across leagues tells you very little.

As a matter of what to follow, the Premier League has the widest group of clubs contesting the top places and by far the most television coverage in Thailand. LaLiga and Serie A play at a different rhythm, the Italian league in particular known for its tactical and defensive emphasis. The Bundesliga draws the highest average attendances in Europe and generally produces more goals per match. Ligue 1 has a wider gap between its leading clubs and the middle of its table than the others.

All five operate promotion and relegation: clubs at the bottom drop to the second tier and the leading clubs there come up. How many go down, and how the last place is decided, varies from league to league; the detail for each one is on its own page.

UEFA runs three club competitions as a hierarchy: the Champions League at the top, then the Europa League, then the Europa Conference League. Places come from league position and from winning a domestic cup, with each country's allocation set by its UEFA coefficient.

From 2024-25 all three replaced the old group stage with a league phase of 36 clubs in a single table, each club facing a different set of opponents rather than everyone. The Champions League and Europa League play eight matches in that phase, the Conference League six. The clubs finishing at the top go straight to the knockout rounds; the group below them plays a play-off round first.

The part that catches people out is that clubs eliminated from the Champions League league phase in the middle positions carry on in the Europa League. The same club can therefore appear in two competitions within one season — so seeing a side on both the Champions League and Europa League pages is normal, not a mistake.

Open any league or cup from the list above and you will find its next fixtures with kick-off times in Thai time, its latest results with scores, its current league table, and its leading scorers wherever the data source publishes them. Competitions we have written about carry an explanation of the format and a set of common questions at the foot of the page.

If the columns in a league table are unfamiliar, or you want to know what a status like HT, AET or Pen. means on a results page, we keep two separate guides: how to read a football league table, and what each match status means. Read either once and it applies to every competition on the site.