football-data.org API Review 2026

football-data.org is a soccer data API built by one developer, who says on the site that the free tier stays free. It returns fixtures, results, league tables, top scorers, teams and squads as JSON over REST. The current version is v4, released in May 2022, and v2 stays online until further notice.

It carries soccer only. There's no odds feed on the free plan, and the paid odds add-on covers pre-match home, draw and away prices. For betting prices across many books, see the odds API guide. For other sports, see the sports data API comparison. We wrote this review from the public docs and one call to a no-key endpoint.

The free tier covers 12 competitions. The coverage page names them: the Champions League, Premier League, Championship, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1, Eredivisie, Primeira Liga, Serie A in Brazil, the World Cup and the European Championships. Paid plans reach 30, 50 or 100 competitions. A call to /v4/competitions without a token listed 191 competitions on 5 November 2026, and each one carries a plan tier.

The main resources are:

• Competitions with matches, teams, standings and scorers, for the current season or an older one through ?season=YYYY.
• Matches by date, status or team.
• Teams and persons, with squads, coaches and a player's matches.
• Areas, which group competitions by country or region.

Line-ups, substitutions, goal scorers, bookings and squads come with the Deep Data plans from 29 EUR. The pricing page lists 6 to 10 seasons of history on the paid plans. Live scores need an upgrade, because the free tier's scores and schedules are delayed.

The API aims to be easy to learn. Resources use plural lower-case paths, enums use upper case (IN_PLAY, not in_play), and list answers carry a count. One header, X-Auth-Token, carries your key. Response headers such as X-Authenticated-Client and X-Requests-Available-Minute show who the server thinks you are and how many calls you have left.

The docs also set a house rule. They ask you not to crawl ids from 0 to 1000 and not to poll resources more often than they change. The API has no push feed, so you poll, and the rate limit sets your pace. The site offers a Postman collection and a quickstart with curl samples.

Plans are monthly, in euros, and VAT may apply (checked November 2026):

• Free: 0 EUR, 12 competitions, 10 calls a minute, fixtures and tables, delayed scores.
• Free with Livescores: 12 EUR, 12 competitions, 20 calls a minute, live scores.
• ML Pack Light: 29 EUR, 12 competitions, 20 calls a minute, trend and form data and 10 seasons of history.
• Free + Deep Data: 29 EUR, 12 competitions, 30 calls a minute, line-ups, scorers, bookings and squads.
• Standard: 49 EUR, 30 competitions, 60 calls a minute.
• Advanced: 99 EUR, 50 competitions, 100 calls a minute.
• Pro: 199 EUR, 100 competitions, 120 calls a minute.

Standard, Advanced and Pro carry the same data as Free + Deep Data. An Odds add-on (15 EUR) and a Statistic add-on (15 EUR) sit on top of a regular plan.

Register on the football-data.org sign-up page. The page says that an account gives you instant access to the free tier, and the free tier costs nothing (checked November 2026). Paid plans start at 12 EUR a month and run to 199 EUR.

Send your token in the X-Auth-Token header on every request. Without it, the API treats you as anonymous: a call to /v4/competitions worked without a token in our test, but a call to a league's standings returned 403, because the resource needed a subscription. A wrong token returns 400 with the message that your API token is invalid.

This sample calls GET /v4/competitions/PL/standings on https://api.football-data.org, with the token in X-Auth-Token. The Premier League is in the free tier. The answer holds a standings list, and each row of its table has a position, a team object and points. It comes from the docs, checked November 2026, and we haven't run it with a key.

import os

import requests

resp = requests.get(
    "https://api.football-data.org/v4/competitions/PL/standings",
    headers={"X-Auth-Token": os.environ["FOOTBALL_DATA_API_KEY"]},
    timeout=10,
)
resp.raise_for_status()

for row in resp.json()["standings"][0]["table"][:5]:
    print(row["position"], row["team"]["name"], row["points"])

For another league, change the code in the path, such as BL1 for the Bundesliga.

The limit is per minute and depends on the plan: 10 calls on Free, 20 on Free with Livescores and ML Pack Light, 30 on Free + Deep Data, 60 on Standard, 100 on Advanced and 120 on Pro (checked November 2026). The docs list HTTP 429 Too Many Requests among their error codes, and the X-Requests-Available-Minute response header shows the calls you have left.

The quickstart lists every endpoint with a curl sample, and the site offers a Postman collection. We found no official SDK, OpenAPI file, changelog or status page. Support is by email to the address on the site. For other soccer sources, see the sports data API comparison.

It suits projects that need soccer tables and fixtures, not betting prices:

• Hobby apps and bots for the big European leagues, on the free tier.
• Dashboards and widgets that show tables, results and scorers.
• Students and prototypes that want a stable REST API with clear docs.

A product that needs live scores in many sports, a push feed or deep history should pair it with another source from the data API list.

football-data.org has run since 2014, and it still does one job well: soccer data with plain REST and a free tier for the top leagues. The pricing is posted, the plans are small and the docs fit on a few pages.

The free plan's 10 calls a minute and delayed scores are enough to build and test an app. Register for a key and call the standings endpoint to see the shape of the data.

Last updated: 5 November 2026 · How providers get listed