I have been playing with an idea for consolidating leagues in Europe in order to improve the overall competition and give particularly the dominant clubs in smaller national leagues a chance to raise their status significantly. I don't have much editing experience and it is such a large undertaking that I thought I would post it here to see if people were interested in giving it a go even on a piece by piece basis.
The idea was already started in earnest with the BeNeliga project. The concept being that if you take two or more smaller national leagues and combine their clubs you end up with a much stronger league and the clubs are better able to compete against the big 4/5 league sides.
This puts the best clubs from each nation together making a league that is much better top to bottom as well as combining the young talent from each country into the system. The increased competition and reputation of the league brings better opportunities in Europe and a better
chance to keep young talent at home longer. For us players it makes keeping an eye on the rest of Europe easier and more entertaining IMO.
Here is what I have drawn up so far. I prefer mergers between nations that share some cultural, political, and ethnic ties where possible. If people have better ideas feel free of course including better or more realistic league names.
Note: With the Balkins being such a messy area politically and reunification totally unrealistic my best idea was to split them off into other mergers even though the nations may not be prefect fits in each case they shouldn't be left to rot either IMO.
(At the bottom of each merger I put the combined national coefficient and where that would rank in Europe in caps)
I freely admit this would need to be adjusted downward because each nation receives a chunk for it's champion that would be rolled into one. I did my best at calculating how much this amounts to and recucing it from the final score.
Benelux: (Adding Luxembourg to the BeNeliga project). This was a real thing in political terms at one point. (Belgian Pro League, Eredivisie, Luxembourg National. Hosted in Netherlands)
EST 52.500 7th in new Europe
Scandanavian Super League: (Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Faroe Islands) This was close to being a nation and there have been various combined kingdoms over time. (Allsvensken, Eliteserien, Alka Superliga, Urvalsdeid Karla, Faroese Premiere).
Merging three fairly middling leagues and two small ones into one big league creates a much larger league talent pool
EST 34.660 11th in new Europe
Sud Bundesliga: (Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein?, Slovenia?)
The combination of the Swiss Super and Austrian Bundesliga takes two leagues in the early teens of the rankings and creates a league I feel would rank somewhere between LigaNOS and the Eredivisie. Throwing in Maribor, another big fish in a little pond only helps both.
EST 43.250 8th in Europe
Russian/Turkish Premier League: This is a combination that would be really exciting to watch IMO. Combining two strong leagues and national talent pools would see the reputation of this league soar. They would be much better positioned to lure top class players and would be able to push into the knockout stages of the CL in a way they can't now.
EST 58.925 5th in Europe
Other ideas include combining:
Czech Republic/Slovakia/Hungary/Romania/Croatia (This would be a very fun league to watch with: Dinamo Zargreb, Hajduk Split, Rijeka, Sparta Prague, Slavia Praha, Slovan Liberec, Slovan Bratislava, MSK Zlina, Steaua, and Dinamo Bucharest.
Greece/Bulgaria/Cyprus/Serbia/Montenegro/Macedonia (Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, PAOK, AEK, Red Star, Partizan, Ludogorets, and APOEL make for an exciting league)
Poland/Ukraine/Belarus/Moldova (Legia, Lech Poznan, Wisla Krakow, Dinamo Kyiv, Shakhtar, Dnipro, Dinamo Minsk, BATE Borisov....Not bad)
Azerbaijan/Georgia/Armenia/Israel? (no idea what else to do with these 4, wouldn't be very strong but better than they are apart)
Anyone interested in working on any of those? Ideas of your own? Comments in general?
The idea was already started in earnest with the BeNeliga project. The concept being that if you take two or more smaller national leagues and combine their clubs you end up with a much stronger league and the clubs are better able to compete against the big 4/5 league sides.
This puts the best clubs from each nation together making a league that is much better top to bottom as well as combining the young talent from each country into the system. The increased competition and reputation of the league brings better opportunities in Europe and a better
chance to keep young talent at home longer. For us players it makes keeping an eye on the rest of Europe easier and more entertaining IMO.
Here is what I have drawn up so far. I prefer mergers between nations that share some cultural, political, and ethnic ties where possible. If people have better ideas feel free of course including better or more realistic league names.
Note: With the Balkins being such a messy area politically and reunification totally unrealistic my best idea was to split them off into other mergers even though the nations may not be prefect fits in each case they shouldn't be left to rot either IMO.
(At the bottom of each merger I put the combined national coefficient and where that would rank in Europe in caps)
I freely admit this would need to be adjusted downward because each nation receives a chunk for it's champion that would be rolled into one. I did my best at calculating how much this amounts to and recucing it from the final score.
Benelux: (Adding Luxembourg to the BeNeliga project). This was a real thing in political terms at one point. (Belgian Pro League, Eredivisie, Luxembourg National. Hosted in Netherlands)
EST 52.500 7th in new Europe
Scandanavian Super League: (Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Faroe Islands) This was close to being a nation and there have been various combined kingdoms over time. (Allsvensken, Eliteserien, Alka Superliga, Urvalsdeid Karla, Faroese Premiere).
Merging three fairly middling leagues and two small ones into one big league creates a much larger league talent pool
EST 34.660 11th in new Europe
Sud Bundesliga: (Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein?, Slovenia?)
The combination of the Swiss Super and Austrian Bundesliga takes two leagues in the early teens of the rankings and creates a league I feel would rank somewhere between LigaNOS and the Eredivisie. Throwing in Maribor, another big fish in a little pond only helps both.
EST 43.250 8th in Europe
Russian/Turkish Premier League: This is a combination that would be really exciting to watch IMO. Combining two strong leagues and national talent pools would see the reputation of this league soar. They would be much better positioned to lure top class players and would be able to push into the knockout stages of the CL in a way they can't now.
EST 58.925 5th in Europe
Other ideas include combining:
Czech Republic/Slovakia/Hungary/Romania/Croatia (This would be a very fun league to watch with: Dinamo Zargreb, Hajduk Split, Rijeka, Sparta Prague, Slavia Praha, Slovan Liberec, Slovan Bratislava, MSK Zlina, Steaua, and Dinamo Bucharest.
Greece/Bulgaria/Cyprus/Serbia/Montenegro/Macedonia (Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, PAOK, AEK, Red Star, Partizan, Ludogorets, and APOEL make for an exciting league)
Poland/Ukraine/Belarus/Moldova (Legia, Lech Poznan, Wisla Krakow, Dinamo Kyiv, Shakhtar, Dnipro, Dinamo Minsk, BATE Borisov....Not bad)
Azerbaijan/Georgia/Armenia/Israel? (no idea what else to do with these 4, wouldn't be very strong but better than they are apart)
Anyone interested in working on any of those? Ideas of your own? Comments in general?
