Should Smaller European Leagues Merge to Compete?

By: Daryl | March 23rd, 2009

Say what you like about Michel Platini, but the man is never short of ideas. And his latest idea is about merging European leagues. Specifically, he wants the top eight teams from the Netherlands and the top eight teams from Belgium to pool their respective resources into one semi-super-league.

The Guardian’s Leander Schaerlaeckens isn’t fond of the idea, mostly because he thinks Dutch football has a bright future all on it’s own. But with all respect to Mr. Schaerlaeckens – who will probably forget twice as much about Dutch football than I’ll ever know – I think Platini might be on to something.

It’s no secret that the big European leagues (Prem, La Liga, Serie A and maybe the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 too) are leaving the smaller leagues behind. More money, better players and more teams in the Champions League, which leads to more money better players and more teams in the Champions Lague, and so on. It’s a vicious circle.

So why shouldn’t the Dutch and Belgian leagues combine forces to form a more exciting league that has a larger target audience? Interest, TV revenues and audience attendances would all rise, and suddenly the Netherlands-Belgium league (NetherBel?) is a lot more attractive and competitive than either could hope to be on its own.

Obviously this isn’t a good idea for all nations. Platini’s plan to merge the Balkan nations back into one big league was – to put it mildly – idiotic. Remember what happened at the Australian Open when Novak Djokovic played Amer Delic?

Yep, that’s Bosnian and Serbian tennis fans throwing chairs at each other.

So maybe a Balkan league isn’t such a smart idea.

But in nations with less explosive rivalries, mergers could be the future.

Which is stronger: a Scandinavian Super League, or the separate Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnnish leagues? Wouldn’t Austrian football benefit from joining an Austro-German Grosse-Bundesliga? Imagine Celtic and Rangers in the English Premier League?

There’s a small-scale version happening in North America right now, with Canadian team Toronto FC joining American teams in Major League Soccer. TFC and its fans have been good for MLS, and MLS has been good for TFC. Although, it’s not like Canada has a strong professional league TFC could have joined instead.

We’re probably some way off any of this happening in Europe. Fans like Schaerlaeckens don’t want to see the league they know and love be transformed into something they don’t recognize. Traditionsis important. And there are UEFA statutes that prevent leagues from merging right now (though I’m sure Platini could fix that with a stroke of his pen). But if the money keeps flowing to the very very top, then it’s only a matter of time before smaller leagues are left with a choice: merge together or get left behind forever.

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James

It already happens to a degree. Berwick (from England) play in the Scottish league, Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham and Newport County, all from Wales, play in the English league, Derry City (Northern Ireland) play in the Republic of Ireland's league, while AS Monaco play over the border in France.
Nikola

First of all, don't accuse Platini of wanting to merge Ex-Yugoslavian leagues back to the one league that existed before 1991. and the dissolution of the country, it is an idea that has come to life right here in Serbia and Croatia.
We had one of the best leagues in Europe before the war broke out and we even had an European and World (EUSA) Champion during that very same dissolution, and what do we have now? Serbian and Croatian leagues are now so pathethic that only the die-hard fans go to the stadia regularly and the quality of play is a mere shadow of the one that existed before this whole mess. We had rivalries, strong clubs that fiercely competed for the title and many games that could be labelled as 'derbies', and what do we have now?
In Serbia, we only have two Belgrade clubs capable of doing anything important in Europe and it's not really nice to see two clubs winning the first two league spots for the last 18 years! Croatia also has only two big clubs, and with the pathetic state Hajduk Split was in in the last few years (they look to be back on track this year, though), they basically had only one!
So, it's natural to create a regional league at some time in the future, I can't really tell whether it's too early or not, but it is evident that isn't a quality football league without 1)rivalry, 2)media and public attention, and 3)solid infrastructure, and all three of these things is what our small leagues desperately lack, and that the creation of the regional league would most definetely improve drastically.

About the tennis fans, it's actually a fight between Australians of Serbian and Bosniak origin, not the people that actually live in Serbia or Bosnia. Not sure if you know, but we already have a regional basketball league reminiscent of the old Yugoslav one, and while there are some problems with the fans from time to time, there isn't actually a riot every time there's a Serbo-Croatian match, with possible incidents not so different than the ones that could happen in the national competitions and between national rivals. So, the idea shouldn't really be discarded so easily, it might actually be our last straw to save our football competitions from total decay.

@Weston: I'm sure you don't want to know what the lyrics say. And it's the Serbians that hold the Croatian flag upside-down so that it could look like a Serbo-Montenegrin one. Not sure what does it have to with the tennis match (there were no Croats involved in that brawl), but looks like it's some kind of an Australian Ultras group's promo video. Definetely irrelevant for the whole issue.
Ian

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Shazback. In order for this to work, all the leagues involved have to be equally poor. In my opinion, all the equally poor leagues that are right next to each other happen to also violently hate each other. Any exceptions?
wiggins

Belgium + Dutch = Beltch.
Weston (@wpazzurri)

catchy music to the tennis brawl.

ps, one of the croatian people was holding the flag upside down.
Shazback

The problem is that it's completely different from the MLS model. In the MLS, Toronto are sure to be in the top division. If the Belgian and Dutch league structures merge, there'll be a strong chance for one country to begin dominating the proceedings relatively quickly (IMO the netherlands).

A Dutch-Belgian league would likely see the Belgian teams (save one or two) drop into oblivion. The Dutch economy as a whole is a lot better, and the Dutch youth programs are miles ahead of the Belgian ones. There's a very strong chance that after 4-5 years, the league that's "lagging behind" will want to opt out. Especially if the few teams that are left in the division aren't exactly fighting for the title.

Why not merge the French and Belgian leagues too, Mr Platini? Put the top 8 from Belgium and the top 12 from France in there. And watch as it becomes the French league with one or two belgian clubs barely surviving, and never qualifying for european competitions. A great step forwards for Belgian football, who no longer lose in the last 16 of the UEFA Cup (Euro league?), but no longer even qualify for it.