1996–97 Premier Soccer League with the crowd being instigated by the Celtic fans. This was a rather surprising turn of events as the Celtic fans, while having a reputation for being extremely vocal and passionate, are not known to be unruly. 1996–97 Premier Soccer League The 1996–97 Premier Soccer League, known as the 1996–97 Castle Premiership for sponsorship purposes, was the first season of the newly established top-flight professional football league in South Africa. The league was an 18-team competition established in 1996 by Irvin Khoza, Kaizer Motaung, Raymond Hack and Jomo Sono in conjunction with the South African Football Association and it would
Premier League–Football League gulf the payments actually widen the gap between teams that have reached the Premier League and those that have not, leading to the common occurrence of teams returning soon after their relegation. This, however, does not take into account former Premier League mainstays which currently are in the Football League, such as the former Wimbledon (who were replaced by Milton Keynes Dons in 2004 following their relocation from South London to Milton Keynes), Sheffield Wednesday, Coventry City and Leeds United, who were founding members of the Premier League and stayed there for between nine and 12 years before going down, and