Size matters

Imagine waking up tomorrow to the news that the North West of England was declaring independence to form a new sovereign nation with its own army, leader, currency and football league. Yes it may sound far fetched but just imagine it, especially the last point, imagine Liverpool and Manchester United being forced to break away from the premier league to form a new domestic league.

Let us just get this into statistical perspective North West England has just under 7 million people within its borders that would put it as the 25^th most populous country in Europe smaller than such powerhouses as Azerbaijan and Belarus.

Now myself as realist understands that the only reason that the premier league is so wealthy is down to the population of England. That is we have enough large population centres to sustain enough well supported and funded football clubs down to a very low level meaning the strength of the league is not in question, my theory is that Leagues are only as strong as their weakest link and because of the competitiveness of the championship the premier league is “competitive” to a point, and because of the competitiveness of League 1 the championship is, so on and so forth. This creates the wealth and interest within the country which allows us to create the interest abroad which creates the wealth which inflates everything and creates even more popularity.

Now apply this to the independent North West England do you think that Manchester United would be able to create the same wealth as they currently do without the population? Yes they will still have their humungous fan base, but so do Celtic and Rangers, but instead of visits to Birmingham, London and Newcastle a typical season would mean visits to Preston, Blackpool and Rochdale, hardly something to wet the appetite and hardly something to create the image of top to bottom competitiveness that a league needs. I say image because as much as the premier league marketing men like to portray the league as competitive in reality it isn’t at all.

Right there I gave you a fictitious example, but the example bares parallels with real life happenings. Lets take the example of Red Star Belgrade a club who are former European champions and who had a crowd of nearly 90,000 for a UEFA cup final (when it was 2 legged) against Borussia Monchengladbach. The point of taking Red Star is that they used to play in a fairly competitive league with derbies and rivals everywhere, by all accounts they used to get healthy crowds and their stars used to remain until in many cases way past maturity. This of course allowed them to build a side and capture the 1991 European Cup.

Unfortunately Yugoslavia was never a stable country especially after the death of Tito and the break up of all these republics was inevitable and with the break up came the unfortunate dissolution of the league. Red Star went from playing in a country of 23 million to one of now less than 8 million. They went from a league with teams like Dynamo Zagreb, Hajduk split, Velez Mostar and Sarajevo to playing against teams that were off the radar only a few years before.

The new Yugoslav league (Now Serbian) is far less attractive and the quality is lower thus seeing players leave earlier to further their careers (make money), games are in front of sparse crowds and some would say fixed. As money has come more into the game of football as a whole smaller countries have suffered even more, meaning that once famous Red star are a shadow of themselves.

Obviously a former communist (although not eastern bloc) nation in the Balkan region of Europe doesn’t compare favourably with wealthy (Semi) capitalist Western Europe. So maybe an example in this region would be more suitable. Western Europe after all has its fair share of small countries from the Netherlands to Portugal; however comparing Scotland with a similar footballing culture to England would be a good start.

As well as being in western Europe Scotland also differs from Serbia in that it has always had an independent league and that Rangers & Celtic have always dwarfed their rivals, however once again as money has come into the game the big get bigger and the small stagnate meaning that Rangers and Celtic now dominate the league on a scale not previously seen. Yes I know they always dominated titles but other teams could and did compete, now the wealth that the “Old Firm” generates compared to the rest guarantees they will always stay ahead. This is obviously what they want but competing in Europe is rare as they can’t attract the stars due in no part down to the weak competition levels in their league and is partly down to the fact that they want to join the premier league.

With that last line what I am getting at is hopefully clear, the reason why big clubs from smaller countries can’t compete is down to competitiveness, interest and wealth. No matter how wealthy you are if your league isn’t competitive the best players in the peak of their career will not join your team, because aside from the few big clubs the interest isn’t there from fans which helps to create the status that many of these big egoed players so desire. And that is just the wealthy clubs from small countries spare a thought for those not blessed with monetary wealth.

I used North west England as an example as it is considered by many a football hotbed (not me anywhere with Wigan, Blackburn and Bolton can’t be), and to hammer home the point that if any of the regions in the big five leagues went independent or more specifically created independent leagues once mighty clubs would fall to new depths. No amount of fans would allow make Manchester United vs. Rochdale more attractive than it sounds. Therefore if you’ve been paying attention it is hopefully clear what the problem is, and hopefully illustrating the removal of a large chunk from a bigger chunk it is clear what the solution should be.

Regional leagues, yes that cursed thing, leagues which transcend national boundaries and create media markets and population pools comparable to the larger leagues in Europe. The Balkans region has a similar population pool and club density as England and Bulgaria or Serbia as a part of this region is no different from the North West or Yorkshire as a part of England. The point being that the only way Red star Belgrade or Steaua Bucharest will ever compete again, and when I say compete I don’t mean qualify for the champions league I mean realistically believe they can win it is if they were in direct competition with each other and other similarly sized clubs in their region. I have an idea where these leagues should be and what countries they should cover but that is for another day, this blog was just to highlight why they were needed and hopefully to all that are reading it is now clear that size matters in football and regional leagues create that size.

4 Comentários

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Por DannyF

24.05.2009 10:54

but i didnt really understand what you are suggesting a team like manchester united should do. take part in a regional league or not?

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Por Supermj

24.05.2009 13:06

@danny, yes kind of, I personally would combine all the leagues of the British Isles into one pyramid system, instead of just incorporating rangers and celtic which is unfair on the rest of Scottish football. Similarly there should be an iberian League, Scandinavian league etc... UEFA is on the case, but it looks to me that they are just looking at merging small leagues together, they should also loook at merging small leagues into big ones.

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Por Dom84

23.06.2009 22:47

It is funny you should discuss the topic of regional leagues in Europe, since I was thinking this very same thought several months ago (I think I read a blog on the Guardian website which got me thinking). The importance of competitiveness (even if it is partially an illusion as with the PL) is obvious; a look at the history of the NFL is a good example of why this is so. With regards to Europe, there are certain regions which make logical sense; the Balkans as you mentioned, plus Scandinavia, Benelux (Holland and Belgium) and maybe a cluster of countries in Central Europe. I would also add that some countries could join up with bigger leagues of neighbours since a regional league is not really pratical (like you add above). Examples could be a British and Iberian league like mention, plus France & Switzerland, Germany & Austria and Greece & Turkey (ok I know some people won't like that last example). On a final point, I just want to say that regional leagues could help prevent an eventual European 'Super' League. Despite the media always mentioning the likes of Barca, Milan, Liverpool, etc, I think its more likely that any driving force will come from once big clubs who now remain disadvantaged by their nation's diminutive size. For them, there is an obvious economic and prestigious reason for wanting to leave their declining associations where as, at least in the big 3 Euro leagues, the status quo is quite dandy for them.

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Por Supermj

25.06.2009 03:21

hi Dom84 thanks for the comments, how to prevent a Euro super league was they i originally wanted to write about regional leagues but i chose this approach. So i agree with you that this would prevent it as it would not only raise the wealth of big clubs in small countries it would lower that of big clubs in big countries as signing a player from serbia or holland would become that much more expensive as clubs would be more able to afford to keep their stars.

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