Glasgow Football Association

rdf:langString Glasgow Football Association

rdf:langString Founded in 1883, the Glasgow Football Association, based in the city of Glasgow, Scotland and affiliated to the national Scottish Football Association, is one of the oldest such bodies in football. In the modern game its influence is limited, the remit being "to represent the interests of the senior football clubs in Glasgow". Those senior clubs competing across the divisions in the Scottish Professional Football League include the two largest and most successful in the country by some distance, Celtic and Rangers (collectively the Old Firm), as well as Partick Thistle, Queen's Park (the oldest football club in Scotland) and Clyde (who no longer play home matches in the city and have a small support partly as a consequence of their relocations); the three smaller clubs exist in the shadow of their dominant neighbours. A sixth team, Third Lanark, had a strong record until their sudden collapse in the mid 1960s. The association's most prominent role is the administration of the Glasgow Cup, a tournament for clubs in the city first contested in 1888, which was once an coveted prize but diminished in importance during the 20th century as national and continental football became more popular; from the 1990s it was contested between the member clubs' youth teams, with a 2020 revamp mixing senior teams from the smaller clubs and underage teams from Celtic and Rangers. In addition to the Glasgow Cup, the association aims to "encourage the involvement of local schools and the development of youth football through a variety of other programmes and events". The Glasgow FA looks after the city's senior clubs but not those in lower categories: for example, the West of Scotland Football League contains several Glasgow-based semi-professional clubs (most previously affiliated to the Scottish Junior Football Association, West Region), and the Greater Glasgow Premier AFL is just one of several leagues involving teams from the city under the Scottish Amateur Football Association umbrella.