Merging National Leagues

maniak

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Taking this from the idea of the british super league, what do non-british fans here think of the idea of merging national leagues?

I'd love to see an iberian league, portuguese teams would have more cash, spanish teams would get better competition because I can see Porto and Benfica with this extra cash being competitive in terms of titles. In terms of traveling, it wouldn't be much different for fans, maybe a bit for portuguese fans going to catalonia, but in general nothing major. Downsides would be some traditional teams from Portugal and Spain would probably have to get used to fighting to avoid relegation and playing often in the second division.

The spots for the CL could remain the same, so an iberian league would have 7 cl spots, the top clubs wouldn't really miss this opportunity.

An iberian league is pretty obvious because of geography, some other places would be trickier.

What do you say?
 

SinNombre

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It is almost a necessity maniak

Europe has too many professional leagues, and dwindling interest as the number of entertainment options for younger folks have increased including access to other stronger leagues.

I am surprised the Benelux league hasn’t happened yet.

League with Ajax, PSV, AZ, Feyenoord, Brugge, Genk, Anderlecht, Liege, Copenhagen, Midtjylland would be a good one.

10 teams, have some promotion/relegation to the domestic leagues.
 

SinNombre

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The spots for the CL could remain the same, so an iberian league would have 7 cl spots, the top clubs wouldn't really miss this opportunity.
I don’t think this will happen otherwise England would demand 7 spots as well given the relative strength.
 

Lay

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What's happening with that proposed Belgian/Dutch league?
 

maniak

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I don’t think this will happen otherwise England would demand 7 spots as well given the relative strength.
I am not talking about relative strength, just the places these countries have now. Spain has 3 direct spots and 1 to the qualifiers, Portugal has 2 direct spots and 1 to the qualifiers, so it would just be the same.
 

The Mitcher

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Some similar complaints to the ESL.

How it will benefit the big clubs only.
The big Dutch ones especially. PSV and Ajax already dominate the Dutch league, they would easily dominate the Belgian league.
 

RedDevilzFox

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I think if anything I would like UEFA/FIFA to think about reducing the meaningless leagues and nations leagues tournaments they have going on. For me, PL and UCL makes total sense. One identifies you as champion of your country and other identifies you as champion of Europe. Beyond that, its all pointless stuff (most of it anyway).

Cramming more football matches in an already crammed calendar is not what I want. Even UCL is boring as it is until it gets to knockout rounds.
 

maniak

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It is almost a necessity maniak

Europe has too many professional leagues, and dwindling interest as the number of entertainment options for younger folks have increased including access to other stronger leagues.

I am surprised the Benelux league hasn’t happened yet.

League with Ajax, PSV, AZ, Feyenoord, Brugge, Genk, Anderlecht, Liege, Copenhagen, Midtjylland would be a good one.

10 teams, have some promotion/relegation to the domestic leagues.
I often think that it's just big clubs from smaller nations being comfortable with being the big fish in the small pond. They underestimate how much they would grow with the extra money.
 

elnorte

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The big Dutch ones especially. PSV and Ajax already dominate the Dutch league, they would easily dominate the Belgian league.
How come Feyenoord never compete to the same level despite being regarded as part of Holland's 'Big Three' along with the other two you mention?
 

The Mitcher

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How come Feyenoord never compete to the same level despite being regarded as part of Holland's 'Big Three' along with the other two you mention?
They won the league in recent years and are in and around competing with them. Fyenoord have far more resources and talent than the Belgian league clubs regardless.
 

OoopsMisclick

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The big Dutch ones especially. PSV and Ajax already dominate the Dutch league, they would easily dominate the Belgian league.
I think Club Brugge would be able to compete as well.

Personally, I think the "big four" would be Ajax, PSV, Feynoord and Club Brugge.
Anderlecht to potentially join the big four if their Kompany project succeeds (it's only recently starting to click a bit)

I'm all for it. BeNe-league would be a good idea.
Too many players that aren't qualitative and lots of illegal money keeping the clubs going.
Professionalization is badly needed in Belgium and partly in Netherlands as well
 

The Mitcher

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I think Club Brugge would be able to compete as well.

Personally, I think the "big four" would be Ajax, PSV, Feynoord and Club Brugge.
Anderlecht to potentially join the big four if their Kompany project succeeds (it's only recently starting to click a bit)

I'm all for it. BeNe-league would be a good idea.
Too many players that aren't qualitative and lots of illegal money keeping the clubs going.
Professionalization is badly needed in Belgium and partly in Netherlands as well
So this is fine, but the ESL is not?
 

SinNombre

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I am not talking about relative strength, just the places these countries have now. Spain has 3 direct spots and 1 to the qualifiers, Portugal has 2 direct spots and 1 to the qualifiers, so it would just be the same.
UEFA rules don’t permit that. No league can have more than 4 CL spots with the CL winner exception.
 

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How come Feyenoord never compete to the same level despite being regarded as part of Holland's 'Big Three' along with the other two you mention?
They won the league in recent years and are in and around competing with them. Fyenoord have far more resources and talent than the Belgian league clubs regardless.
Mostly mismanagement going back 2-3 decades, leaving them actually pretty much skint these days. No way do Feyenoord have more money to spend than the big Belgian clubs.
 

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Yeah, they are closer than ever now with all the Belgian sides on board, but the Dutch clubs below the top remain very hesitant, so it remains unlikely to happen as of yet. As someone who grew up in the Netherlands, I'd be all for the BeNeLiga (as I think they're calling it; technically it's anyway not a Benelux thing without Luxembourg on board); I think it would be great. :)
 

Bertie Wooster

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I'm against it as I think it's a slippery slope once you open up leagues made up of teams from various established leagues (so not the same as Welsh teams in England as they didn't have a professional league then).

Merging top teams from Spain and Portugal, Holland and Belgium, the Scandinavian Leagues, a British league, etc. These suggestions are a huge change and goes against the whole idea of domestic leagues.

Suggesting 'how good would it be for the top teams from these countries to play each other instead of the smaller teams from each country' is the same starting off point as the Super League. And, before long, once you've got used to top teams from different countries in leagues, it leads to the suggestion of 'why not take the top teams from each of these mixed leagues and have them in a league together?'

I can't really see how people who adamantly oppose any suggestions of huge changes along the lines of 'tradition and history, fans attending games having to travel to other countries so all being done for TV viewers,' etc, could support the idea of national leagues merging. It just seems the midway step towards a European Super League type idea.
 

JPRouve

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So this is fine, but the ESL is not?
The main point against the ESL, is the fact that it was essentially a closed league and the fact that it was down behind the back of most clubs and FAs.
 

The Mitcher

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The main point against the ESL, is the fact that it was essentially a closed league and the fact that it was down behind the back of most clubs and FAs.
But yet the other issues, like being geared towards the big clubs are also present. Ajax and PSV (with maybe Feyenoord) are going to win ever more trophies and win more TV money as the rest struggle to compete.
 

JPRouve

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But yet the other issues, like being geared towards the big clubs are also present. Ajax and PSV (with maybe Feyenoord) are going to win ever more trophies and win more TV money as the rest struggle to compete.
These issues aren't a charactistic of the ESL though, it's true for any league where you have teams with different sizes and from cities that also are different. Football isn't based on equalitarianism so, I don't really follow your point because if anything people are against this model which is the american model.
 

Cheimoon

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I'm against it as I think it's a slippery slope once you open up leagues made up of teams from various established leagues (so not the same as Welsh teams in England as they didn't have a professional league then).

Merging top teams from Spain and Portugal, Holland and Belgium, the Scandinavian Leagues, a British league, etc. These suggestions are a huge change and goes against the whole idea of domestic leagues.

Suggesting 'how good would it be for the top teams from these countries to play each other instead of the smaller teams from each country' is the same starting off point as the Super League. And, before long, once you've got used to top teams from different countries in leagues, it leads to the suggestion of 'why not take the top teams from each of these mixed leagues and have them in a league together?'

I can't really see how people who adamantly oppose any suggestions of huge changes along the lines of 'tradition and history, fans attending games having to travel to other countries so all being done for TV viewers,' etc, could support the idea of national leagues merging. It just seems the midway step towards a European Super League type idea.
I don't see that. First, country borders are arbitrary, they are accidents of history. Why would they have to determine how football is played, especially in an EU (which is not all of Europe, I know) with one currency and no noticeable borders? Why does it make more sense for someone from Maastricht to watch their local MVV play Groningen or Heerenveen hundreds of kilometers away, rather then clubs from nearby towns in Belgium like Standard Liège, Racing Genk, or KAS Eupen?

Second, if amalgamation of leagues leads to another ESL, it would be a very different ESL, and one I could actually get behind. Because none of these amalgamations would do away with promotion/relegation. Just as lower down in the English football pyramid, you would relegate to a lower local league rather than to a lower national league.

To get a practical example: if it makes sense that England has separate league structures within one country, and that those split up locally once you get further down in the pyramid - then why would it be so weird to do something similar on an international scale? Just because it's new?
 

bosnian_red

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I dunno. I'm ok with every country having their own thing. Merging leagues means 99% of the teams in those smaller leagues end up falling off and get hurt because they no longer get any revenues from the few times they played the big teams.

The big difference is it is all still based on merit of course. It's inevitable that teams will grow to dominate over time and the bigger will grow. Everything should be done to help promote a level playing field, but what can really be done? TV viewership is balanced with the biggest still getting more though and slowly widening the gap, just not as quickly as in Spain. And then they get big bonuses when they get the added bonus of CL football.

If you want a truly level playing field, then pretty much the whole business has to be reformed. Salary caps for all players and clubs being the same across every team in the league. Transfer spending caps being the same for everyone. Promotion or relegation means you have a different amount to deal with now. Change laws regarding profiting off football clubs and ensure the money stays invested in the club and the community as a certain percentage being guaranteed non profit. Dead even TV income. Any money from European competition goes directly to the league to be shared equally, and the competition being mainly pride based with the money not going directly to you, but everyone from your country. Over a long period of time eventually the smaller clubs will earn enough to be able to meet the salary cap that the top clubs could already meet, and so everyone would have an equal financial level in terms of salary and transfer fees. So then the edge that clubs attempt to get with money would be investing in facilities, education etc which would be for the betterment of everything anyway. But the big thing is then it'd still go the way it is now. You'd still have a super league eventually, by way of the premier league becoming it rather than across Europe as you'll still have that gap between leagues. It's impossible to have a level financial playing field between countries, and its honestly not all that relevant. This one definitely falls in the "sucks to suck" area IMO. It would be great if every league had equal chance to be at the top, but why would England, Italy or Spain get it and not Netherlands, Portugal or Turkey?

Basically any sort of change to level the impact of financial disparity on the pitch could only be done within a division, would require a very long period of time, and in reality would still be dominant teams, just through their facilities and not their salaries. Combining domestic leagues probably doesn't do much for most of the league and just pushes them down to lower divisions, aside from the top few who would be benefitted.

Anyway, if you have just 1 cross border European domestic structure, does that really benefit anyone but the top? It's much more beneficial for a small European club to get drawn against a European giant. And in the grand scheme of things, you'd get such a big disparity between the top clubs and the rest. There's no longer a competition that gives you this big financial boost if you do well domestically. It's all just the 1 competition, with less chances of upsets eventually occurring. The reason it was even before was because football didn't spike financially, there were laws that meant players couldn't leave their domestic league until the age of 27, and only the champions qualified for the European Cup. None of that exists anymore so dominance and a growing difference financially is inevitable. At least this way, countries can control a level playing field within their own leagues and still maintain that fanbase, and they will always have their routes to the Champions League to ensure that the best players at least aren't fully hoarded by 1 league.
 
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OoopsMisclick

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So this is fine, but the ESL is not?
Would the BeNe-league be invite only? No
Would the BeNe-league have relegation? Yes
Would the BeNe-league be created with agreement of both local FA's? Yes

Those are already three major differences.
BeNe-league would always be in favor of the bigger clubs at the start.
That's why major solidarity measures have been proposed.

I'm not saying it's perfect but the inquest against any change in light of the ESL is a bit ridiculous.
Let's compare apples with apples, please.


PS. All major Belgian clubs and to some extend Dutch clubs have been complaining for years that they can't compete with the top leagues.
They can continue to complain or try to change something. I'll leave in the middle what the best choice is.
 

giorno

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The problem with merging leagues is that it can't be done properly without merging *all* levels, not just the top flight. Otherwise how do you go about promotion and relegation without screwing the smaller clubs

Honestly, the dirty dozen screwed up big time with their proposed idea of the superleague

Imagine this: using the same criteria for qualification to the CL, the create a superleague, wherein the 32 teams who'd normally qualify for the group stage would instead enter the superleague - which would replace the domestic league for the teams in question for the season. From there, divide into 4 groups of 8. Play teams in the group twice and everyone else once(38 games) then the top 4 of each group qualify for KO stage. 4 semifinalists stay in the superleague(unless there's more than 2 teams from the same country) while the rest enter a relegation mini-tournament/playout with their domestic competitor

You'd get a 47 games SL for the finalists, plus an extra 6 to 14 games top 4 league sides who fail to qualify through the SL.

Equal TV money share across the SL, with a significant chunk(say, 1/3) going back to the domestic leagues(plus a chunk for FAs and women's football). Teams would still compete in one domestic cup

No uefa supercup, keep the EL for teams who fail to qualify to the SL
 

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That this is even discussed, is a symptom of the biggest clubs having had too much influence on UEFA for a long time now. It should not have been necessary! UEFA should grow big enough balls to support the smaller nations more. Now they even give solidarity money to PL teams, and the two extra places in CL for the highest co-efficient ranked non qualified teams is shameful. Lesser nations have to play qualifying matches for two months even if they are champions at home.

If we had a scandinavian League, the biggest clubs could compete more in Europe and have better economies. At the same time, the rest of the clubs would have a boring league and the sport at home in each separate nation would suffer as a whole.

Like with the super league, which would have hurt the PL in England, of course it would do the same with such leagues in other places. Qualifying and staying up would be very hard due to the economical differences, and there would propably be rebellion as with the SL.
 

Giggs' right foot

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It is almost a necessity maniak

Europe has too many professional leagues, and dwindling interest as the number of entertainment options for younger folks have increased including access to other stronger leagues.

I am surprised the Benelux league hasn’t happened yet.

League with Ajax, PSV, AZ, Feyenoord, Brugge, Genk, Anderlecht, Liege, Copenhagen, Midtjylland would be a good one.

10 teams, have some promotion/relegation to the domestic leagues.
What country do you think FC København and FC Midtjylland are from?
 

SinNombre

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What country do you think FC København and FC Midtjylland are from?
Denmark has been included in previous proposals including the Atlantic league which also included Scotland

Clearly even Luxembourg isn’t included in this proposal.
 

Njord

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I'm all for merging smaller leagues. The CL would be a lot better and more entertaining if it consisted of teams from 10-12 somewhat even leagues.
 

Giggs' right foot

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Denmark has been included in previous proposals including the Atlantic league which also included Scotland

Clearly even Luxembourg isn’t included in this proposal.
I mean the Atlantic thing makes sense, given both Denmark and Scotland borders the Atlantic ocean, whereas Benelux is a region Denmark by no means is a part of or even shares borders to. But I must admit, I've never heard of these previous Atlantic proposals. Was it long ago?
 

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This is a good Idea , Always wanted German league merge with Austria and Netherlands.

But in the Past UEFA blocked it
 

SinNombre

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I mean the Atlantic thing makes sense, given both Denmark and Scotland borders the Atlantic ocean, whereas Benelux is a region Denmark by no means is a part of or even shares borders to. But I must admit, I've never heard of these previous Atlantic proposals. Was it long ago?
About a decade back iirc?

The Scandinavian leagues and Scotland also face the same issues as NL and BE
 

Giggs' right foot

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About a decade back iirc?

The Scandinavian leagues and Scotland also face the same issues as NL and BE
Issues such as? I'm Danish so I remember the Royal League from the 2000s which was a cup tournament for teams from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It was a fecking bore - nobody cared and three years into it, it was canceled due to lack of interest from fans, teams, and broadcasters. I suppose that's one of the possible issues you're hinting at? That playing teams from different countries maybe won't really spark that big of a must-see-kinda-vibe due to lack of rivalry?
 

Dan_F

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It would be chaos, but the Balkans is the obvious area that could benefit from this kind of thing. In reality it’ll never happen.
 

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Weren't the leagues the most important thing? the most traditional, with more than a century of history?
And what about the fans of the excluded teams? what happens with those little derbies that disappear?
No one is going to think about the children who support those little teams? Isn't it something purely artificial and contrary to the values of our sport?
Ajax-Anderlecht or Madrid-Benfica may be interesting at first but watching them every year they would lose their appeal. A fan has the same interest in an Athletic - Sporting Lisboa as in an Athletic - Besiktas.
Would they start in the last division or we will eliminate the meritocracy?
In short, one more turn of the screw so as not to assume the surfeit of irrelevant matches and the quality differences between teams