Should Some Leagues Merge!!!

Danke. Was ek Das! Guten Tag/Morgen. That is the extent of my German proficiency :-). Thanx.

Well, that's a start You can always try to run the site through Google translator or so and hope it'll stay somewhat intelligible. ^^

Dat Dinamo Zagreb - Crvena Zvezda match, it was exactly on 13 May 1990, two days have passed from it's anniversary.

It would end the same way again.

something like that already exists but at the moment only for basketball.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABA_League

though they had some hesitations with basketball, i think football would be a bad idea, because to have regular fixtures between some of the most nationalistic countries in the world wouldnt be such a good idea.

If the nationalist feelings are not standing in the way greater economic integration (EU), then it should not be an obstacle to cultural integration as well. Specially when it can deliver goods just as the economic integration.

In Spain, there are strong nationalist feelings among Basques and Catalans but they are playing in an unified league. Dispite their rethoric, people know a Basque or Catalan league won't be anything (financially) near to Spanish League.

Whoever stirs-up nationalist ego should compare the state of these clubs before and after the break-up.

Personally I would like it if all the Basque and Catalan teams split away and formed there own league (with any other communities welcomed to join). Having the Copa del Rey still having all of the teams from both leagues participating; this way people would still have the chance to see the Clasico plus the rivalry in these cup games would be pretty serious as it would be league vs league. Also think it's time Spain dropped a few teams from it's first division, ala Bundis. It's not a huge country, so I think this would help as far as distributing money to the teams in the top flight or what not with less teams in the first division.

Back on topic - I think the thread starter is on to something. I think that would really help out the smaller leagues to get some momentum going

iftikhar wrote:If the nationalist feelings are not standing in the way greater economic integration (EU), then it should not be an obstacle to cultural integration as well. Specially when it can deliver goods just as the economic integration.

In Spain, there are strong nationalist feelings among Basques and Catalans but they are playing in an unified league. Dispite their rethoric, people know a Basque or Catalan league won't be anything (financially) near to Spanish League.

Whoever stirs-up nationalist ego should compare the state of these clubs before and after the break-up.

LOL. Did you guys hear about Srebrenica? Did you guys know there are villages in Kosovo with only female population? Not even kids under up to 13-15yo were spared. The shit in Balkans happened (depending on the country we are speaking) from 15- 20 years ago. I still remember sleeping in the boxes in between borders. I still remember being in front of the guns pointed at me by masked paramilitary forces. And i was one of the lucky ones. I did not get beaten, none of my family died. Well none from my Albanian side. Cant say the same from my Bosnian side. Although, my grandmother died from lack of medicines not from direct war actions.

Now add t this that probably the most nationalistic and idiotic people are actually fans, who are not really fans just people who strive for conflict and hate.

If the countries go in EU, then they will have to make more efforts to fix these things. If they are to be accepted in EU they will have to implement a lot of regulations which right now that don't give a rats ass about.

Eelir, I didn't know you had to go through those ordeal. It made me shiver even watching on TV. I had a special place for Yugoslavia and the break-up & related insanity was really hard on me. Yet watching those images of Belgrade, Moster, Dubrobnik, Vakuba, Sebrenicha was nothing compared to being shot at. I still can't figure-out why! People killing each other knowing they have to live together. What did they gain!

iftikhar wrote:che, rwo: would please give some details/ links (in English) regarding the mergers of Swiss & Austrian and Czech & Slovak leagues!!!

no english links, people in czech republic and slovakia barely care about it in their own language lol

che wrote:

iftikhar wrote:che, rwo: would please give some details/ links (in English) regarding the mergers of Swiss & Austrian and Czech & Slovak leagues!!!

no english links, people in czech republic and slovakia barely care about it in their own language lol

I have searched and found some articles. Seems the main stumbling block is the infrastructure. Slovak stadiums (apart from 1-2) lack things like under-ground heating.

After a few drinks I once brought this subject up with some Bad Blue Boys in a bar after a Dinamo match.

I remember saying it, then there was a silence and thinking I am about to be stabbed.

But we ended up having a decent discussion about it. On a domestic and international level there are pluses for it but too many negatives. Way too much hatred and bad blood.

But they agreed something will have to change in the future. Balkan football has dramatically declined since the days when Yugoslavia were highly competitive.

I know in Croatia football attendances have been dropping with other sports like Handball and Basketball becoming more popular.

The way things stands, clubs from Balkan, East Europe, Baltic, Nordic will pretty soon start loosing not just their star players but young talents as well. That too to mid-table clubs. And they will not have money to groom more youths.

Seems like there are lots of thoughts about turning the fortune by strengthening the leagues through mergers. But they lack that leap of courage. May be the Russians will do it, come 2015.

Do you think it would be good if Leagues from Scotland, Welsh, Ireland & N. Ireland are merged with different levels of English Leagues!!! I don't understand what purpose those leagues are serving ATM.

iftikhar wrote:Do you think it would be good if Leagues from Scotland, Welsh, Ireland & N. Ireland are merged with different levels of English Leagues!!! I don't understand what purpose those leagues are serving ATM.

I don't know would it change anything for the better. Also logistics would become an issue for some clubs. I don't know would it make any sense for Inverness (northern Scotland) travel to Plymouth (south coast England) for a lower league game of football, or crossing the Irish Sea for regular lower league footy doesn't sound that appealing, either.

It's good, though, that Cardiff and Swansea are allowed to play in English football, because they would be just too big for the Welsh league. I just checked, and the current champions of the Welsh league (The New Saints FC) play at a ground that has capacity of 2,000. No, I didn't forget a zero. That really says it all. Perhaps it would similarly make sense for Celtic (and Rangers when they get their act together) to join the English system, because they probably are too big for the Scottish league.

I was all for a BeNe-league some time ago but I really don't know if it would actually make that much of a difference. It's obvious that the dutch league at the moment can't compete with the big leagues but would that change if we merged with Belgium? I don't know. Of course we'd get a bit more money, bit more attention and the league would become a bit more competitive. But it wouldn't close the gap to the top leagues and that's the only reason to merge I guess.

Still not against it but I doubt it would have any major impact.

@ art: the lower leagues are regional based competitions, so that shouldn't pose any logistics issue.

@ zigra: the combination of Ajax, PSV, Liege, Anderlecht is certainly better than just half of it.

I would like it much , as I would like to see the Old Firm in EPL

iftikhar wrote:@ zigra: the combination of Ajax, PSV, Liege, Anderlecht is certainly better than just half of it.

And the combination of Bayern, Dortmund, Barca, Real and Atletico would certainly be better than just half of it.

Combining leagues only makes sense if the impact is somehow huge. You don't combine two leagues if you don't get a lot out of it. It would make a better league for sure but it's only interesting if the new league would be really good not just a bit better than the crap we have right now. Don't forget what it means for the clubs. A lot of them would have to drop to 2nd division football, top clubs would become midtable and stuff like that.
And I doubt merging those two would really change a lot. Merging 3-4 leagues would probably have that impact.

McAgger wrote:PL and SPL. Get Celtic and Rangers into English football so their fans could see that they won't be able to survive in PL.

why is that? rangers and celtic could just use the increased revenue from playing in the EPL to buy foreign players . you know , just like the rest of the league.

how about a Gallo-Romance league ?

french speaking part of belgium
french and italian speaking part of Switzerland.
french teams
catalan and valencian teams
teams from northern italy ( juventus, inter, milan ,atalanta etc....)


best league in the world.

The German or Spanish leagues have sufficient quality and that in turn draws lucrative sponsorships.

In case of Dutch or Belgian (and lots other leagues in Europe) the quality is too low to attract better sponsorships. This in turn stymies the growth of the teams. Another thing is, matches between Ajax-Liege (or as such) will draw bigger crowd (similar to Ajax-PSV) and better receipts for the teams.

Moreover, you always have to consider the distances the teams (and their fans) have to travel. You can't just merge some leagues as then it would turn out to be contra-productive as it would be come too expensive for both fans and clubs to go from one place to the other.

iftikhar wrote:The German or Spanish leagues have sufficient quality and that in turn draws lucrative sponsorships.

In case of Dutch or Belgian (and lots other leagues in Europe) the quality is too low to attract better sponsorships. This in turn stymies the growth of the teams. Another thing is, matches between Ajax-Liege (or as such) will draw bigger crowd (similar to Ajax-PSV) and better receipts for the teams.  

I know that but what I said is that even though the teams would get more money in a new league it wouldn't make a big difference to the current situation. The new league wouldn't become a new powerhouse which would be something you want to achieve by merging leagues. It would still be a relative small league no be able to financially compete with the big five.

I do want a change. It's 9 years or so that no team outside the big 5 (germany, france, spain, england, italy) made it to the semifinal of the CL. I'd love to see us challenge for the Champions League once again. I just don't think we'd be able to achieve that by merging just those two leagues. It just wouldn't be enough.

No it wont be enough but it's start that's needed. Present situation is just too dire to leave matters to status quo. Event merger of two small leagues will double the number of 'big' games and considerable increase in match-day & other revenues. After that, it's a matter of shrewd marketing to build on it.

iftikhar wrote:Event merger of two small leagues will double the number of 'big' games and considerable increase in match-day & other revenues.

The increase of matchday revenue is questionable, though. If the distances are too large, then the number of away fans might be much lower, thus an increase of the size of the audience is not a given.

iftikhar wrote:Do you think it would be good if Leagues from Scotland, Welsh, Ireland & N. Ireland are merged with different levels of English Leagues!!! I don't understand what purpose those leagues are serving ATM.

League wise ?.. No I don't think this would work


However, I think a cup based competition would be fantastic. Would give a huge boost to Irish and welsh domestic leagues.