Guardian

THE game of football, also known as soccer in many parts of the world, is about the most popular sport on the face of the earth.

Amongst other reasons, it owes its popularity to the fact that from Calabar in Nigeria to downtown Harlem in the United States and even to Bogota, home of ‘crack’ and legendary football clubs in Colombia, football at amateur level is played in street corners, concrete surfaces and indeed every found space.

The reason for these include the fact that at that level, it requires very little equipment and effort to learn the basic skills required to toss the ball around and eventually shoot it into the opponent’s goal post.

At the professional level, soccer remains the highest paying team sport even as it evokes immense passion and plays a great role in the life of individual fans, local communities, and even nations.

Added to this, the prize money for the winning team at the World Cup is as high as US $30 million as was the case at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The runner-up got $24 million, semi-final losers got $20 million, quarter-final losers went home with $18 million, second-round losers departed with $9 million and first-round losers $8 million, while each team received $1 million for preparation costs.

In a survey conducted by the sport’s world governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), and published in the spring of 2001, over 240 million people regularly play football in more than 200 countries in every part of the world.

To date, football remains one of the sports that has undergone some of the most astounding transformation, and has brought about unparalleled entertainment to its players and followers, as well as, generated multi-billion dollars in television rights.

In addition to these, investments worth many more billions of dollars have sprouted up supporting the leagues directly or indirectly.

As all these happen, club sides from major leagues from around the world have drawn followership from all parts of the world and it is these followers that always brandish the clubs and leagues they follow as the best and the strongest amongst others, even though there is a body that computes figures to determine the strongest league in the world.

However, some of the world’s best leagues, have operated for decades and in the process, recorded some landmark achievements.

For instance, the Italian elite football league, the Serie A, located at the top of the Italian football league system, has been operational for over 80 years since the 1929-30 season.

Organised by Lega Calcio until 2010, when a new league, the Lega Serie A, was created for the 2010/11 season, it is regarded as one of the best football leagues in the world.

In fact, Serie A was considered the best league in the world in the 90s, up till mid-2000 and it has produced the highest number of European Cup finalists. In other words, Italian clubs have reached the final of the competition on a record 26 different occasions, winning the title twelve times.

Currently ranked fourth among European leagues, according to UEFA’s league co-efficient (in European football, the UEFA coefficients are statistics used for ranking and seeding teams in club and international competitions).

The coefficients are calculated by UEFA, who administer football within Europe, based on the performance of Italian clubs in the Champions League and the Europa League; it is also ranked fifth in world according to the first trends of the 2011 International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) rating.

The Serie A plays host to three of the world’s most famous clubs- Juventus, AC Milan and Internationale Milan, all of whom are founding members of the G-14, a group, which represents the largest and most prestigious European football clubs.

Apart from being the only league to produce three founding members of the G-14, more Serie A players have won the coveted Ballon d’Or award while playing at a Serie A club than any other league in the world, just as Milan is one of two clubs with the most official international titles in the world.

Since Italy is currently rated as the fourth European country in terms of club football ratings, the top three teams in the Serie A qualified for the UEFA Champions League (from the 2012-13 season). The top two teams qualify directly to the group phase, while the third-placed team enters the competition at the play-off qualifying round and must win a two-legged knockout tie in order to enter the group phase.

Teams finishing fourth and fifth qualify for the UEFA Europa League tournament. A third UEFA Europa League spot is reserved for the winner of the Coppa Italia. If the Coppa Italia champion has already qualified for the major European tournament by placing in the top three of Serie A, the third UEFA Europa League spot goes to the losing finalist. If both Coppa Italia finalists finish among the top five teams in Serie A, the sixth classified team in Serie A is awarded the UEFA Europa League spot.

In Spain, José María Acha, a director at Arenas Club de Getxo, first proposed the idea of a national league in April 1927. After immense debate regarding the size of the league and who would take part, the Real Federación Española de Fútbol eventually agreed that 10 teams would form the first Primera División in 1929.

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Arenas Club de Getxo and Real Unión were all selected as previous winners of the Copa del Rey. Atlético Madrid, Espanyol and Europa qualified as Copa del Rey runners-up and Racing de Santander qualified through a knockout competition. Only three of the founding clubs, Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Athletic Bilbao, have never been relegated from the Primera División.

A total of 59 teams have competed in the Primera Division of the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional (LFP), popularly known as La Liga, nine of which have been crowned champions.

In the elite division, 20 teams contest for the diadem, with the three lowest placed teams at the end of the season being relegated to the Segunda División and replaced by the top three teams in that division. Since the 1950s, Real Madrid and Barcelona have dominated the championship. Real Madrid have won the title a record 32 times and Barcelona over 20 times.

During the 1930s and 1940s and in the last two decades, however, La Liga has seen other champions, including, Atlético Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Valencia, Real Sociedad, Deportivo, Real Betis, and Sevilla. FC Barcelona is the current champion.

Over the past five years, La Liga has remained the strongest league in Europe, according to UEFA’s league coefficient and it is also reputed as one of the most popular professional sports leagues in the world, with an average attendance of 30,275 for league matches in the 2011/12 season.

According to Wikipedia, this attendance figure, is also the fifth-highest of any domestic professional sports league in the world and the third-highest of any professional association football league in the world, behind the German Bundesliga and English Premier League.

The Fußball-Bundesliga, better known as the Bundesliga, is at the zenith of the German football league system and it is Germany’s primary football competition. Like the other major leagues in the world, the Bundesliga, which is contested by 18 teams, also operates on a system of promotion and relegation. While all of the Bundesliga clubs qualify for the DFB-Pokal. The winner of the Bundesliga qualifies for the DFL-Supercup.

Since it was founded, a total of 52 clubs have competed in the Bundesliga with FC Bayern Munich winning the title 22 times, the most by any club. Other prominent past champions include Borussia Dortmund, Hamburger SV, Werder Bremen, Borussia Mönchengladbach and VfB Stuttgart.

Currently ranked third in Europe by UEFA’s league coefficient, based on recent European performances, the Bundesliga is ranked the number one football league in the world in terms of average attendance as an average of 45,134 fans attend each game during the 2011/12 season. This was ranked the second highest of any sports league in the world.

Founded in 1962 in Dortmund, where the first season started in 1963, the Bundesliga is broadcast on television in over 200 countries.

The German Football League now operates the Bundesliga, which was originally founded by the German Football Association.

German football, to many, is on the ascendency and its palpable strength was recently highlighted when Bayern Munich took on Borussia Dortmund in last week’s first all-German UEFA Champions League final in England.

One thing that is manifest in the German league is the fact that the Bundesliga is more closely bounded by financial compliance and built at least in part by supporter ownership. This explains why it is arguably, the most sustainable league in the world.

In terms of glitz, glamour and panache, the Premier League founded in February 20, 1992 is high up there.

With England being home to the world’s first football league, which was founded in Birmingham in 1888, the birth of the Premier League, which is now being oiled by monies from rich Americans, oligarch sheiks, has revolutionised the business of football as a professional sport.

The Premier League is a corporation in which the 20 member clubs act as shareholders. Currently sponsored by Barclays Bank and thus officially known as the Barclays Premier League.

Outside of Great Britain, it is commonly referred to as the English Premier League.

The competition formed as the FA Premier League on February 20, 1992 following the decision of clubs in the Football League First Division to break away from The Football League, which was originally founded in 1888, and take advantage of a lucrative television rights deal.

To date, the Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes and a potential television audience of 4.7 billion people.

In the 2010/11 season, the average Premier League match attendance was 35,363, the second highest of any professional football league other than the German Bundesliga, and stadium occupancy was 92.2 per cent capacity.

The Premier League ranked second in the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) coefficients of leagues based on performances in European competitions over the last five years.

Since 1888, a total of 23 clubs have been crowned champions of the English football system. Of the 45 clubs to have competed since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, five have won the title: Manchester United (13), Arsenal (3), Chelsea (3), Blackburn Rovers (1) and Manchester City (1). The current champions are Manchester United, who won the title in the 2012–13 season.

Despite significant European success during the 1970s and early 1980s, the late 1980s had marked a low point for English football. This was a period where stadia were crumbling, supporters endured poor facilities, hooliganism was rife, and English clubs were banned from European competition for five years following the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985.

Consequent upon these and other factors, English league football fell way behind that of Spain and Italy. However, by the turn of the 1990s the downward trend was starting to reverse; England had been successful in the 1990 FIFA World Cup, reaching the semi-finals.

UEFA, European football’s governing body, lifted the five-year ban on English clubs playing in European competitions in 1990 (resulting in Manchester United lifting the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1991) and the Taylor Report on stadium safety standards, which proposed expensive upgrades to create all-seater stadia in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster, was published in January of that year.

With all the statistics and figures provided by the UEFA and other bodies, there is still no agreement among experts on the strongest league in Europe. The opinions are as varied as tastes in style of football of those proposing them.

Veteran sports journalist and Group Managing Director of Complete Sports newspaper, Mumini Alao, says deciding the best league in Europe would only be subjective.

He said, “there are several parameters to be considered before drawing a conclusion on which European league is the ‘best’. Even at that, the overall conclusion may still be subjective because different people will attach greater importance to different parameters.”

From a footballer’s point of view, the best league will most probably be the one that puts more money in his pocket or where he can play regularly or where he can win lots of trophies.

“A football fan will pick the league that parades the largest concentration of superstar players; a coach may pick one where tactics are of very high standard; while a critical journalist may pick the one with the least incidents of scandal in terms of controversial refereeing decisions or match-fixing.”

“However, the most generally accepted criteria is usually the awards and prizes won by the players and club sides in a league. On the basis of that, we can assert that the English and Spanish leagues were the best last (2011/2012) season because Chelsea won the European Champions League, while Barcelona and Real Madrid produced the best two players in Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The German league will also be rated as the best in the just ending 2012/2013 season because two German teams- Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund- contested the Champions. League final,” he said.

But despite the Bundesliga domination this season, Alao said, “regardless of which leagues are winning the trophies, I personally rate the Spanish league as the best in Europe at the moment because their top two teams, Barcelona and Real Madrid, have consistently reached the Champions League semi-final in the last three years, while Messi and Ronaldo have dominated the FIFA World Player of the Year award during the same period.

“The German Bundesliga will rate second in my reckoning because of Bayern Munich’s exploits (two UCL finals in the last three years), while the English Premier League will come in third in consideration of Manchester United and Chelsea’s recent achievements.”

Also looking at the recent happenings in European football, Nigeria’s former Captain, Segun Odegbami says the fact that two German teams played in the final game of the UEFA Champions League does not make the Bundesliga the strongest league in Europe.

Odegbami, who confesses his admiration of the Barcelona brand of football, adds,  “that FC Barcelona (and Real Madrid for that matter) were not in the final of the championship surely does not mean the end of the Spanish Giants.

“Far from it. Coaches in Europe will still spend the next few years contending with trying to understand and counter the impact of Barcelona’s unique style of play that has been the greatest innovation in football since the Dutch introduction of the ‘Total Football’ philosophy of the early 1970s.

“Without question, that the two Spanish giants, Real and Barca, were beaten so badly by German Clubs in the manner they did, has elicited intellectual inquiry and must interpret as a genuine possible shift in European football from Spain to Germany.

“How long that would sustain would have to be seen when the next football season resumes again, plus how the German national team performs as the battle for the World Cup in 2014.  Without question club football affects and influences national teams’ performances in many instances, with England as one of the few possible exceptions where its club football high rating is a far cry from how the national team plays.”

Super Eagles’ former midfielder, Mutiu Adepoju, who plied his trade in the La Liga, agrees with Odegbami that the Spanish league is the strongest in Europe.

“I want to say that Spain has the best league in Europe in terms of quality of play and players. Having played in Spain, I noticed that aside the quality, the league is well organised and most of the world’s stars play in the La Liga and this goes to show the quality in the league.

“That the German teams ruled Europe this season does take away the quality in La Liga. I am not saying the German league is not good but in terms of quality you cannot compare it with La Liga.

“The best player in the world plays in the La Liga. So for me the three top leagues in the Europe are La Liga, Bundesliga and English Premiership,” Adepoju said.

Super Eagles former Assistant Coach, Fatai Amoo, posits that with the outcome of this year’s UEFA Champions League, the German league is the best in Europe at present.

“For me the German league is the best because the two teams that played in the final of the UEFA Champions League are from Germany and they are also the top teams in their domestic league. They also accounted for the exit of giants like Real Madrid and Barcelona. So their making it to the final was no fluke because they faced some of the top teams in Europe before berthing in the final.

“This goes to show that Bundesliga is the best. They might be not signing big players or paying huge money for their players but when it comes to organisation and quality of play, they are up there.

“So it is suffice to say that Bundesliga is Europe’s best league now. What the two teams – Bayern and Dortmund — did in their domestic league really translated to their outings in the UEFA Champions League.”

Another former international, Waidi, like Adepoju and Alao, is of the opinion that the Spanish league is the best in Europe considering hat Barcelona and Real Madrid have qualified for the later stages of the champions League in recent years.

He also based his assertion on the fact that 10 of the teams in the La Liga could compete favourably with the best teams in Europe, adding that although Barcelona and Real Madrid are way up in the La Liga ladder, the likes of Valencia, Atletico Madrid and Malaga have shown that they have what it takes to do well in Europe.

“I think the Spanish League is the strongest in Europe because their teams have proved to be some of the best in Europe. That is not to say that other leagues are not good but the way the game is played in Spain shows that they understand the way modern football should be played,” Akanni said.

He added that the exploits of Bundesliga’s Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, who played in the final of the UEFA Champions League last season, does not mean that the league has become the strongest in Europe. “It only shows that the German teams have become consistent with their performance in the last five seasons.”

According to Akanni, “many have said that the Germans have become a strong force in Europe due to the exploits of Bayern and Dortmund, but I guess dominating the game in Europe or in any other continent is much more than presenting two teams from a country in the final of a particular tournament on the continent.

“I am impressed about the good developmental programmes put in place by the Bundesliga teams, but that does not make their league or their teams the strongest in Europe.”

Apart from having good developmental programmes like the German and Spanish teams, the former international also said that a strong league must have good entertainment value with their style of play just like the Spanish league.

According to him, a good league should also have the power of television just like the English Premier League (EPL), adding, however, that the English league is not technically as sound as the Spanish league.

Akanni dismisses the notion that power is shifting from the Spanish League to the Bundesliga, saying that the performance of Dortmund and Bayern would only make the UEFA Champions League more competitive next season as other clubs would be alive to the threat posed by the Germans.

“I guess what the German teams have done is to tell the whole of Europe that they are now a force to reckon with. This will wake up other top teams on the threat posed by the Bundesliga teams. The likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid and other top teams from other leagues would be better prepared for next season by improving on their squad.”

To Emeka Ezeugo, who played for the Super Eagles from 1986 to 1994, the question of which league is the strongest in Europe would only be answered correctly when every variable is considered.

According to Ezeugo, who plied his trade in Asia, Europe and South America, Europe has become the preferred destination of elite footballers from all parts of the world, with Spain attracting players of Latin America origin more than the rest of Europe.

“Players of African origin generally head to France, England, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and Portugal because of their ties with the period of scramble for Africa and the colonisation of the continent.

“When the players gain experience with the conditions of temperate region and European football, bigger clubs in England, Spain, Germany and most recently, Russia, rush in with astounding sum of money to pluck them.

“When one talks of the strongest league in Europe, the word ‘strongest’ sounds ambiguous because strongest here may signify playing in the harshest wintry condition as in Russia, the Scandinavia and some parts of Scotland. It could also mean who has the strongest defense like Italy’s ‘Catenaccio’ (the legend is an enduring legacy of Italy’s Calcio, a tactical system in football with strong emphasis on defense as an integral part of football, a sure tool or vehicle that guarantees success) that rolls in a trailer in front of their 18-yard box.”

“We are talking style here. Strongest may mean a league that parades the cream of the crop in football. Strongest could mean where the publicity, glamour and parked arenas are. Strongest could equally mean where the money is.”

Ezeugo says, “in my opinion, England should be given that tag. Conditions in England include winter’s harsh sides - cold, rainy, slushy, you name it. Style - long balls, wing play and great aerial strength. Don’t forget the frenetic pace. Tradition - the fans are an integral part of any club no matter the level. The demand from their insatiable fans, the media and the professionalism there is second to none. It is business first before considering the entertainment part.

“In terms of wages, England is much better than other places in Europe. It is simply incomparable in global recognition, visibility and exposure.

“All in all, if a player is looking for competition, challenge, visibility, recognition and exposure of global proportion, England is the destination. Football’s home is England and the English Premier League has done a better job in the area of propaganda than the rest of Europe. And with the influx of the best players of the world that have designated England as their preferred destination, I have to say that England has the strongest league.”