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Free / open data

football-data.co.uk

Free downloadable CSV archive of historical football results, match statistics and bookmaker odds for many leagues, updated through the season.

Facts verified against the provider's site on

Commercial use: not disclosedBetting use: not disclosedMostly positive
Visit official siteOpen API docsCompare
Featured in:❤️ Developer favourites📈 Best betting odds APIs📂 Open sports data🐙 Most used on GitHub⚽ Best football APIs
60

SportDex Score

#18 of 233 sports APIs

See the full ranking →
Popularity
48

Brand demand, developer discussions, GitHub repos and videos

Community & reliability
69

Tone of public discussions, liked vs criticised points, reliability complaints; based on only a few discussions, pulled towards neutral.

Transparency
75

Public prices, docs, terms and coverage you can check before calling sales

Developer experience
54

Free access, docs, SDKs, OpenAPI, sandbox, realtime delivery, ecosystem

Computed from public data only; uptime and latency are not measured yet. Enterprise feeds that sell by contract score lower on transparency by design. How the score works

Starting price
Not public
Free access
Free tier
Sports
1 (Football (soccer))
Live data
Not disclosed
Delivery
CSV download
Discussions
7 threads
GitHub adoption
3.6k repos

Best for

Analysts and modellers who want free downloadable CSV files of historical football results, match stats and bookmaker odds.

Betting model backtestingHistorical results analysisOdds movement research

Not ideal for

Apps needing live data or an API; this is a static CSV archive updated periodically.

Limitations to check

  • − CSV downloads only, no live API
  • − Update schedule is periodic
  • − Terms and licence not stated on saved pages

Written from the provider's own pages (source).

Last checked 2026-11-03

football-data.co.uk at a glance

What is football-data.co.uk best for?
Analysts and modellers who want free downloadable CSV files of historical football results, match stats and bookmaker odds. Not ideal for: Apps needing live data or an API; this is a static CSV archive updated periodically.
How much does football-data.co.uk cost?
football-data.co.uk does not publish prices on the pages we checked.
Does football-data.co.uk have a free tier?
Yes. football-data.co.uk lists a free plan called "Free CSV downloads".
What does football-data.co.uk cover?
football-data.co.uk is a free / open data. Its sports: Football (soccer); data: Historical data, Odds, Results, Team stats.
Does football-data.co.uk have a WebSocket or streaming API?
No streaming is listed. football-data.co.uk delivers data by CSV download, so you poll for updates.
What do developers say about football-data.co.uk?
Long-standing free CSV archive of results, match stats and bookmaker odds, the default starting point for football modelling and used by thousands of GitHub projects. Users value the free historical odds, but say league coverage is limited (few lower or secondary leagues) and files are downloads, not a live API.
What are the alternatives to football-data.co.uk?
Close alternatives in the SportDex catalog: Football Charts, CollegeFootballData.com, iSports API, SportsGameOdds, TheStatsAPI.

Commercial decision

Pricing & plan limits

PlanPriceRequestsWhat's included
Free CSV downloadsFree—Free historical results and odds filessource

Dataset, not a live API. Home page promotes third-party paid services (TheStatsAPI, OddsRelay) as affiliates; those are not this provider. docs_url is the known data page, not fetched.

Before choosing a paid plan, confirm

• What counts as one request (per call, per market, per region?)

• What happens when you exceed the quota: blocked or billed

• Whether live and historical data are on your plan

• Whether your use (public app, betting, resale) is licensed

The critical question

Data coverage

Sports
Football (soccer)
Data types
Historical dataOddsResultsTeam stats
Key competitions
Champions League, Europa League, Championshipsource
Competitions
Not disclosed
Live / in-play
Not disclosed
Women's competitions
Not disclosed
Betting markets
1x2, corners, cards, over under
Bookmaker regions
Not disclosed
Bookmakers
Not disclosed
History depth
since 1993 (per catalog hint)
Update frequency
periodic updates
Name languages
Not disclosed
ID mapping
Not disclosed

Coverage often depends on the plan; confirm the exact league and season on your plan.

Before you build

Usage rights & access

Commercial use
Not disclosed
Betting products
Not disclosed
Redistribution
Not disclosed
Storing data
Not disclosed
Attribution
Not disclosed
Logos & photos
Not disclosed
Who can buy
Individualssource
Verification (KYC)
Not disclosed
Not available in
Not disclosed
Only available in
Not disclosed

Developer-ready evaluation

Integration & documentation

Protocols
CSV download
Formats
CSV
Authentication
none
SDKs
Not disclosed
OpenAPI spec
Not disclosed
Claimed latency
Not disclosed
Status page
Not disclosed
Sandbox / test keys
Not disclosed
Support
Not disclosed
SLA uptime
Not disclosed
Preview brief
# Integration brief: football-data.co.uk

Goal: build a feature on football-data.co.uk data. Use only the official documentation below as the source of truth.

## Known facts (from SportDex, verify before relying on them)
- Website: https://www.football-data.co.uk
- Docs: https://www.football-data.co.uk/data.php
- Sports: Football (soccer)
- Data: Historical data, Odds, Results, Team stats
- Protocols: CSV download; formats: csv
- Auth: none
- Free plan: Free CSV downloads
- Note: Dataset, not a live API. Home page promotes third-party paid services (TheStatsAPI, OddsRelay) as affiliates; those are not this provider. docs_url is the known data page, not fetched.

## Verify before writing code
- whether commercial use is allowed on the plan you pick
- exact endpoint paths, parameters and response fields (read the official docs, do not guess)

## Implementation rules
- Keep the API key on the server (environment variable, backend route or edge function); never ship it to the browser.
- Cache responses and respect rate limits; count how many requests each screen triggers.
- Handle errors explicitly: invalid key, quota exceeded (429), missing fields, empty fixtures, timeouts.
- Start with one demo request and log the raw response before building UI on assumed field names.

Data quality signals

Data source & company

Official partners
Not disclosed
How data is collected
Not disclosed
Certifications
Not disclosed
Payment methods
Not disclosed
Minimum contract
Not disclosed
Country
Not disclosed
Founded
Not disclosed

Reddit · Hacker News · Stack Overflow · GitHub · YouTube

What developers say

Mostly positivefree tiercoveragealternatives

Long-standing free CSV archive of results, match stats and bookmaker odds, the default starting point for football modelling and used by thousands of GitHub projects. Users value the free historical odds, but say league coverage is limited (few lower or secondary leagues) and files are downloads, not a live API.

Praised for

  • Free historical results and odds
  • Widely used in models and scrapers
  • Simple CSV format

Complaints

  • Limited league coverage
  • Not live or an API

Our summary of public discussions, not a rating. Vendor posts are not counted as user opinion.

Discussions

Shortlist next steps

Alternatives worth comparing

  • Football Charts logo
    Football ChartsFree / open data49

    Daily-updated football results, tables, goal timing, model probabilities and season projections for 98 leagues via JSON REST and an MCP server; open CC BY dataset and paid history tiers.

    Free tierFootball (soccer)
    from €9/mo1 discussions · 14 repos
  • CollegeFootballData.com logo
    CollegeFootballData.comFree / open data57

    College football API with games, team and player stats, recruiting, betting lines and advanced metrics; free key with monthly cap, higher tiers via Patreon, plus basketball API.

    Free tierCollege sportsAmerican footballBasketball
    Free tier2 discussions · 1.1k repos
  • iSports API logo
    iSports APISports data API45

    Asian-based sports data API covering football and basketball: livescore, fixtures, lineups, stats, standings, pre-match and in-play odds, historical data and animation, with a free trial and widgets.

    LiveFootball (soccer)Basketball
    from $49/mo4 discussions · 7 repos
  • SportsGameOdds logo
    SportsGameOddsOdds API59

    Odds API priced per event rather than per market or bookmaker, covering 67+ leagues with props, alternate lines, scores and results, plus an optional realtime WebSocket stream.

    Free tier⚡ StreamingAmerican footballBasketballBaseball+2
    from $99/mo7 discussions · 46 repos
  • TheStatsAPI logo
    TheStatsAPISports data API50

    Football API with fixtures, results, match and player stats, xG, lineups, heatmaps and pre-match/live odds from five bookmakers, across 150 competitions (up to 1,196 on request) with 10 years of history.

    7-day trialLiveFootball (soccer)
    from $50/mo3 discussions · 23 repos
football-data.co.uk vs Football Chartsfootball-data.co.uk vs CollegeFootballData.comfootball-data.co.uk vs iSports APIfootball-data.co.uk vs SportsGameOddsfootball-data.co.uk vs TheStatsAPI

Evidence & transparency

Official sources

Facts were extracted from the provider's own pages on 2026-11-03. Empty fields mean the provider does not say, not that the feature is missing. How we know