San Marino having a league of 16 is bonkers
Recently the Swiss Super League was expanded from 10 teams to 12. I think this is a good thing for Swiss football because the quality of the 12-14 best teams in the country allows it. 10 teams was a bit too restrictive for the football development of the players in teams caught in the bottleneck of the second division.
To contrast it with the Premier League which has 20 teams, it would be disastrous for English football to have a 12 team top division. But with the quality of the teams coming up recently and then immediately being relegated maybe 18 teams would strike a better balance?
The overall and average quality of the football matters when deciding how many teams to have in your top division and there’s a balance you have to strike. As well as the difference between the top, middle and bottom of the table.
I’d argue that the Bundesliga has seen the benefits of an 18 team league over a 20 team league (shorter season, less matches and less of a gap between top and bottom).
Welcome to the clusterfuck of our post-Covid league:
- 2019-20: 18 teams
- 2020-21: 21 teams (no one got relegated, 3 teams got promoted)
- 2021-22: 20 teams
- 2022-23: 19 teams
- 2023-24: 20 teams (original plan was to have 18 teams this season but the earthquake prevented 2 teams from finishing their season so only 2 different teams were relegated with 3 new teams getting promotion)
I’d say even the usual 18 teams is a bit too much for Turkish league. 16 would be better.
We are a crowded country. There is a population of 85 million. There are 9 Istanbul teams in the league. Currently, there are no teams from the top 5 cities such as Izmir and Bursa in the Turkish league. Izmir is a city of 4 million, Bursa is a city of 3.5 million. Super league matches are not played in 15 of the 30-40 largest stadiums in Turkey. If we reduce it to 16 teams, the lower divisions may become stronger, but the pleasure of watching will end. Currently, only half of the top 10 clubs of all time in Turkish league history are playing in the Super League.
If I were to design a league artificially, I would swap at least 8 teams out of 20 in the Turkish league with important teams in the lower divisons. If we reduce the league to 16 teams and 9 Istanbul teams are in the league, I think football in most cities will disappear.
Nah, 18 is the golden standard. Especially if you look at a population of 80 million. What bothers me instead is the amount of İstanbul teams in the league, 9 out of the 20 teams are from the biggest city.
I’ve only been to Izmir and Istanbul but Istanbul is by far the biggest city. London also dominates the premier league
The clubs in London are big clubs and have fans. 3 of the 9 clubs in Istanbul are the 3 big clubs, the others are clubs that have very few fans and consist of players preferred by football players who do not want to live outside Istanbul. Başakşehir and Kasımpaşa have stadiums, but the others either play in the Atatürk Olympic stadium or play in small neighborhood stadiums. The matches of Eskişehirspor in the amateur league are played in the new and modern stadium with a capacity of 32,500 people and in front of thousands of people.
Erzurumspor, located at an altitude of 1850 meters in Eastern Anatolia, can have more spectators than the smaller teams in Istanbul at -13° temperature at noon. Their stadiums have a capacity of 25 thousand. İstanbul domination isn’t realistic except 3 big teams.
I don’t think so 18 is the way.
Don’t know why this idiotic institution that goes by the name of Turkish Football Federation with that moustache guy in charge only wants to relegate one additional team per year. France for instance switched from 20 teams to 18 teams in an instant by relegating 5 teams at once previous season.
Why couldn’t you pick a wider range of colors
In Belgium we might only have 16 teams, we still play 40 matches because of the playoff system.
More games = more money. And if a league has some rules like “the amount of rest day between each game must not be fewer than 6 days regardless of competition”, then a whole season must be rather long.
I wonder scientifically what is the best length for a season of football league? What is the best amount of rest day between each game for the players to be fully refreshed? Heard players complaining for ages about match congestion.
I think for the science of it, I think area covered, fan-base spread and available wealth would be important factors determining the optimal size of a football league.
The smaller the area, the more teams can be supported due to overall decreased travel costs (of course this applies for the total number of teams before they become regionalised and may extend beyond the league, such as England hitting 116)
The better the spread of fans too, the more teams you can have. Scotland has I think 5 teams with an average attendance over 10,000. England has I think 40+. This is why Scotland only has 12 teams despite probably being able to host a decent few more is the lack of support.
Available wealth. This covers three-bases. Is there the money for newly promoted teams to be viable, is there money available to make extra matches profitable and also are all the clubs rich enough for it to be even. If there is money in more teams and they can be competitive, more teams will likely be added.
Not necessarily true for individual clubs. More games means more attendance revenue. However it also means tv money is split between more teams.
In the case of France, an 18 club league brings in less revenue than a 20 club league, however each individual club makes more in an 18 club league (as two less attractive clubs don’t take a piece of the tv money).
It’s also better for clubs who play play in Europe to have 4 less domestic league games and focus on more lucrative European ones.
TIL that there are only 4 leagues in Europe with 20 teams. The popularity of the PL, Serie A and La Liga (and Ligue 1 until last season) is making me think that there are more 20-team leagues because most of the times news come from these leagues
Suprisingly few countries that play 20 team. Personally believe 16 team is perfect especially now we have so much football outside of the national leagues.
A better title would be: Number of teams in the top men’s league in each UEFA country.
Less confusing, starting with the data you are showing: number