What’s the Most Competitive League in the World?

By: Daryl | February 26th, 2008

Allesvenskan Not sure if you read The Knowledge in The Guardian, but if you like fascinating little factoids then you could definitely do a lot worse. Basically readers mail in obscure trivia questions, and then various Guardian journalists gather their smartypants together, get some research done, and come up with some answers.

Recently someone asked what the most competitive top division in Europe was, if competitive is defined as the number of different teams to win the title in recent years. I’ll give you a hint: It’s not the Premier League.

The original questioner suggested the League of Ireland Premier Division. The Republic of Ireland’s 12 team top flight has produced seven different winners (Drogheda, Shelbourne, Bohs, Cork, St Pats, Derry and Dundalk) since 1995.

The Swedish Allsvenskan also gets a mention. The 16 team division has had eight champions (Malmo, Gothenburg, Hammarby, AIK Solna, Djurgarden, Halmstad, Helsingborg and Elfsborg) since 1995.

Finally, the tiny San Marino top flight, the 15 team Campionato Sammarinese di Calcio has had eight different teams lift the trophy (Tre Fiori Fiorentino, Libertas Borgo Maggiore, SS Folgore/Falciano, SC Faetano, Cosmos Serravalle, SP Domagnano, Pennarossa Chiesanuova and SS Murata) since 1995.

Why 1995? I think just because that was the date the original questioner used in order to demonstrate the League of Ireland’s parity.

So one interesting question: how does Major League Soccer compare? MLS is theoretically the most evenly conceived football league in the world, with salary caps and the worst teams getting the first draft picks and so on and so forth. MLS has produced either five (DC United, Chicago Fire, Kansas City Wizards, San Jose Earthquakes and Los Angeles Galaxy) or six (if you count Houston Dynamo as a separate team to the cup-winning San Jose side) different MLS Cup winners since 1996 in a league of varying size. Which could be a lot worse, but doesn’t make it the most competitive.

Does anyone out there have a suggestion for a league outside of Ireland, Sweden and San Marino that you could argue is the most competitive in the world?