New Fan's question about Euro Club Soccer

[fscat]

I've always been a soccer fan, but more of competitions like World Cup. However, I've recently become a fan of Euro Club Soccer and came to notice that a big European city will often have 3 or more teams in the First Division. Why is this? Being a American, a big city will have no more than two teams. Do all these teams receive proper support?

[MasterShake29]

I've always been a soccer fan, but more of competitions like World Cup. However, I've recently become a fan of Euro Club Soccer and came to notice that a big European city will often have 3 or more teams in the First Division. Why is this? Being a American, a big city will have no more than two teams. Do all these teams receive proper support?

Let's look at England. Of course London has a ton of teams, but then again London is even bigger population wise than New York City.

Now, unlike America, teams earn their way into the first division, they don't start out there like they have in MLS. So the league chiefs of the English Premier League don't decide where the teams will be located, they decide for themselves.

Some teams have excellent support, some not so great, just like anything else in life.

[BocaFan]

Actually New York is quite a bit bigger population-wise than London (http://www.citypopulation.de) , but that's not really the point. I think the 2 main reasons for the difference are:

- soccer is bigger in Europe than any sport is in the US
- (basically what MattBurlew was saying): soccer clubs in Europe are older and started smaller than most clubs in US

[gaijin]

There is also the historical, social, cultural and economical situations which allow more than one team to be born in one city.

An example would be Glasgow. Where Celtic, formed as a club to raise money for Irish immigrants in the city allowed another team to be formed for the Protestant Glaswegians - Rangers.

Its a loose example, without massively going into the history and details - but there is one slight example.

One major reason that has just been quoted is history. Some teams are over a 100 years old, and in those times, they have the prestige to carry on and develop as professional teams, with a large fan base and tradition.

The majority of US sport teams, either are very young, or relocate when the money gets dried up. The culture stateside is a lot different and you therefore get far less competition in one city because usually one team saturates the support.

Now if you could tell me why LA doesn't have a NFL team anymore, I would be happy.....

[MasterShake29]

My error. For some reason I thought London was around 20 million.

As a comparison, how many baseball teams does NYC have? At least 4 I think (Mets, Yankees, Brooklyn, and Staten Island).

[BocaFan]

My error. For some reason I thought London was around 20 million.

As a comparison, how many baseball teams does NYC have? At least 4 I think (Mets, Yankees, Brooklyn, and Staten Island).

Right.

So comparing baseball teams in NYC to football teams in London...

in the top division: London - 6; NYC - 2
in the top 4 tiers: London - about 20 (?) ; NYC - 4

[RichardL]

When the clubs in Europe formed generally they were just that - clubs - where members would meet up to play the game, and play matches against other clubs. There would have been hundreds, possibly thousands of clubs in England alone. As time went by, some of these clubs started attracting support while others withered on the vine.

In attempts to get more organised competition, various clubs got together to form leagues. Over time these leagues evolved into a national competition, with promotion and relegation determining the status of each club, letting the cream rise to the top, so to speak. Because of this there is no limit to the number of clubs from a city in a division - or even part of a city. In Scotland Dundee and Dundee United are only 100 yards apart. The closest in England are Notts County and Nottingham Forest at 400 yards, while Everton and Liverpool are twice that distance.

From next season there will be 13 professional clubs in London, with four drawing 30000+, down to Barnet, who'll only get about 3000 in the fourth divison down.