List of Football Clubs That Have Never Been Relegated

Football clubs that have never been relegated include Austria Wien and Rapid Wien, whose records stretch back to the start of organised competition in Austria. But England’s six Premier League ever-presents belong to a different category: they’ve avoided relegation from that competition, not throughout their entire histories.

That distinction can settle quite an argument between supporters. Before you give your club the bragging rights, you need to know whether you’re talking about its whole history, one league competition or its latest spell in the top division.

What does “never been relegated” actually mean?

Relegation means dropping from a higher league division into a lower one. But a club’s record depends on where you start counting, especially when national competitions have replaced older regional leagues.

There are three different claims you’ll often see grouped together:

• Always at the highest level: the club has remained at the highest available level across its history. Austria Wien and Rapid Wien are examples, with important historical context.
• Never relegated from a particular competition: the record starts when that league began, rather than when the club was founded. England’s Premier League records start in 1992.
• Uninterrupted top-flight membership since promotion: the club has stayed up during its present spell, but may have suffered relegation before that. Arsenal’s run since 1919-20 illustrates this distinction.

These aren’t interchangeable. A club can have an excellent survival record in a modern league and still have a relegation in its earlier history.

Which English clubs have never been relegated from the Premier League?

As of March 2026, six clubs had played in every Premier League season since the competition began in 1992-1993: Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

That’s an impressive record. But none of those six can claim never to have been relegated from England’s top division across their entire history. Each went down before the Premier League began.

Club	Last top-flight relegation	Uninterrupted top-flight spell began
Arsenal	1912-13	1919-20
Everton	1950-51	1954-55
Liverpool	1953-54	1962-63
Manchester United	1973-74	1975-76
Tottenham Hotspur	1976-77	1978-79
Chelsea	1987-88	1989-90

These relegation dates and the starting seasons of each uninterrupted spell are recorded by GOAL.

So, has Arsenal ever been relegated?

Yes. Arsenal were relegated in 1912/1913, when they were known as Woolwich Arsenal. They returned to the First Division for 1919-1920 and have remained in England’s top division since then. So, ‘Arsenal have never been relegated’, leaves out part of the story. ‘Arsenal have never been relegated from the Premier League’ is the accurate version.

What about Manchester United and Chelsea?

Manchester United’s last top-flight relegation came in 1973-74. They returned for 1975-76, well before the Premier League existed.

Chelsea’s last relegation was in 1987/1988, after a relegation play-off defeat against Middlesbrough. They won the Second Division the following season and returned to the top flight for 1989-1990.

Both clubs therefore qualify for the Premier League-era distinction, but not an all-history one.

Examples beyond English football

Outside England, the same question becomes more complicated because league structures have changed in different ways. Some countries moved from regional competitions to national leagues; others formed new leagues after countries split apart.

These examples show why the wording matters:

Club or clubs	The record and its scope
Austria Wien and Rapid Wien	Can claim continuous participation at the highest available level since competition began in Austria in 1911.
Olympiacos, Panathinaikos and PAOK	Have played in every season of the unified Greek league established in 1959.
Dynamo Kyiv and Dinamo Tbilisi	Have always played at the highest possible level across the Soviet and successor national league systems.
Red Star Belgrade, Partizan Belgrade and Dinamo Zagreb	Have played at the highest level since the creation of socialist Yugoslavia.
Hajduk Split	Have never been relegated since first playing in the championship of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Why the Austrian record needs context

Austria Wien and Rapid Wien offer particularly long-running examples, but the competition in 1911 wasn’t a nationwide league in today’s sense. Organised football was played in the Lower Austria league, and only Vienna clubs took part.

The modern Austrian Bundesliga began in 1974. So a record measured from that competition’s launch is different from one measured across the highest available competitions since 1911.

Why a new league doesn’t tell the whole story

The unified Greek league began in 1959, but Greece already had a Panhellenic Championship connecting city leagues from 1927 to 1959. The Greek federation recognises those earlier titles alongside modern league championships.

That’s why “ever-present since 1959” is a more precise claim than using that date alone to describe a club’s entire top-flight history.

Is an ever-present club the same as an unrelegated club?

No, an ever-present has taken part in every season of a competition. A club that joined later can avoid relegation without being an ever-present. Brighton illustrate the difference. GOAL’s April 2022 account listed them as unrelegated from the Premier League following promotion for 2017–18. But they weren’t founding members, and they had previously been relegated from the old First Division in 1982/1983.

So a list of Premier League ever-presents answers a narrower question than a list of clubs never relegated from that competition.

Does success mean a club has never gone down?

Not necessarily. Manchester City were relegated from the Premier League in 1996 and again in 2001. They therefore don’t belong alongside the six ever-present clubs, regardless of their later success.

And even a very long top-flight run can end. Hamburger SV played continuously at Germany’s highest level from the end of the First World War until 2018. Dynamo Moscow appeared in every Soviet Top League season but were relegated from the Russian Premier League in 2015–16.

Finally, the most useful way to describe these records is to name both the competition and the starting point. “Never relegated from the Premier League” gives you a clear claim to discuss. “Never relegated” on its own can leave half the argument unresolved.