Alp-League to be founded?

[olafgb]

In the news today:

Austrian Bundesliga and Swiss Nationalliga seem to plan the biggest reform in the history of both associations. As it got known on Tuesday, the two associations think about merging their leagues. At a meeting of club responsibles of FC Basle, Grasshopper Zurich, Servette Geneve, FC St Gallen as well as officials from the Austrian Bundesliga, it was decided to finance a study to check whether a realisation is possible. Afterwards the responsibles will meet again and talk about the details.

[Oscar]

UEFA will possibly want to stop this from happening even though both federations would be happy with the arrangement, it would just open the door (be it a little) for teams from a certain country wanting to move to another league.

http://home.wanadoo.nl/dman/c_realmadrid.gif ole, ole, ole http://home.wanadoo.nl/dman/spain.gif

[AFCA]

Merging two leagues or moving a team from one league to another are two very, very different things.

[Oscar]

It's not that different.

[RobtheAggie]

There have been a few good threads abiut this on the Austria/Switzerland Forun already. UEFA has said that they first a unified proposal would need to be presented. Then UEFA would look at the case. Personally I doubt that it will happen. There is some serious opposition to this. Servette is not for this at all, along with a few other teams. Basel and GCZ are for it, along with a bunch of Austrian teams. The timeline that I have heard is if it happens, it will take about three years to implement.

There is talk of a Alpine Cup this summer as a precursor to the league. There could be say the top four teams from each league play a UEFA Cup style tournament to crown the Alpine Cup Champion. But this too is still on the drawing board.

[olafgb]

I think it would make sense for the teams regarding the sportive and financial aspects. Don't they also have an Alp-League of Austrian and Italian clubs in hockey? Naturally UEFA will block it as any merger could be the first step for many similar plans.

[AFCA]

Originally posted by Oscar
It's not that different.

Yes it is.

This is a plan to help out both leagues, to form a bigger, stronger and probably more interesting league with bigger TV revenue (which teams in both countries can use very well)

A club moving from one league to another helps one (mostly already wealthy) club, not a whole league. Besides that, it's simply not acceptable for a team to play in another country's competition, which is not the case when you merge two leagues.

[Oscar]

¿How is it very different when you're looking at teams that are basically moving to a different league which includes teams from another country, wether it's a completely new one or an already existing one?

And I don't know how many teams both the Swiss and Austrian leagues count, but if they each got around 16 teams in their top league: I doubt the teams that will effectively get relegated to the new 2nd division, to make space for the other country's top teams, will like this agreement much. (another simmilarity :) )

[RobtheAggie]

Ok a little background for those unfimiliar with the Swiss and Austrian leagues. The Swiss system is changing next year so I will give you how it will be then. The top league, LNA, will have 10 teams playing a double round robin. The bottom two will be releagued and the top two from the LNB. Previous to this year the LNA, and LNB started the seasons with 12 teams in each, and tradiontional relegation/promotion of two teams. A home and home would be played in the fall. The top 8 teams in LNA would then play the Final round in the spring. The bottom four would play the top 4 from LNB in the spring in the promotion/relagation round, with the top four moving up to LNA the next season. The bottom eight would play each other and the bottom two would be relegated to the 1st league, with the top two 1st league teams moving up.

Austria is a little more tradtional and has a 10 team 1st league with normal promotion/relegation.

Alot of the questions that you are raising have been discussed here:
http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36498

[AFCA]

Originally posted by Oscar
¿How is it very different when you're looking at teams that are basically moving to a different league which includes teams from another country, wether it's a completely new one or an already existing one?

And I don't know how many teams both the Swiss and Austrian leagues count, but if they each got around 16 teams in their top league: I doubt the teams that will effectively get relegated to the new 2nd division, to make space for the other country's top teams, will like this agreement much. (another simmilarity :) )

It's different in everything. The motivation, the consequences... everything.

Not all leagues are 'mergeable' too IMO. There has to be some parity. I think the Swiss and Austrian leagues are at about an equal level. Besides that, it's possible to merge them into one big competition without relegating anyone.