"The big 5 leagues" - Why the French?

[rcoobc]

They have more people than the rest besides Germany and Russia so that shouldn't be a factor.
Portugal 10 million => 10800 average attendance
France 65 million => 20000 average attendance

There is still some false logic in there.France has more decent clubs than just the 20 Ligue 1, and Portuguese football has a higher average attendance that it otherwise would, by only having 16 teams competing. If we compare like for like, we'd probably be an average attendance of around 8640 for Portugal's top 20 teams. Or perhaps it would be fairer to look at either the top 16 French teams attendances, or possibly the absolute attendance rather than average. The Portuguese league is over just 30 games, the French 38...

There are lots of factors that should be taken into account really. France is a huge place, so the top 20 teams aren't going to properly represent every community. The 16 Portuguese teams should represent more of Portugal than the 20 French teams.

I think the best statistic would be to just compare the top 16 French teams with the 16 Portuguese teams; but I dont have the capacity to do that at the moment. http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=france_2013

 

[ALX8725]

Tonight two french clubs (St Etienne and Nice) were eliminated from the EL vs opponents you would think they'd be able to beat them. PSG, Monaco and even Marseille might be active every season in terms of transfers but overall the level has gotten worryingly weak in the last 5 years.
I actually feel bad for Lyon, the way Aulas is destroying the great club he built is horrible to watch, I cannot imagine what their fans must be feeling.

Could you provide some more insight to this? I was wondering what happened with Lyon and the why behind their downfall... I have a cousin who lives in Lyon but he does not follow football. Love the city.

 

[kouroux]

I'll keep it short, Lyon used to have the biggest and best squad in France because they were able to offer their players high wages (in comparison to other french clubs). Aulas has always had this vision to make Lyon a truly European great and for him it cannot happen with the construction of a bigger and more modern stadium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stade_des_Lumières).

With that project fairly in an advanced stage but not receiving the agreement to build, Aulas anticipated things and decided to start "a hunt against all the big salaries". In the last 3 seasons (the last two to be more precise) he has gotten rid of all the highest paid players (who were logically the best ones) one by one, relying on the promising but far from ready youngsters.

This season, Bafetimbi Gomis and have been at war during the entire summer with Aulas doing everything possible to get him off the club, by humiliating him publicly on twitter, by insulting. It's been ugly at Lyon, this summer they sold Lisandro and Gomis is with the reserves. Aulas wants to sell him for a fee too high and no clubs except from exotic ones have showed interest, Gomis wants to stay in Europe in hope of the world cup.
If it was possible he'd also get rid of Gourcuff, the only remaining big salary of their club. That European dream of Aulas has hurt his club in the short term, in the longer one we'll see.