The Swiss National-Liga/Ligue Nationale has changed its name to Swiss Football League (SFL). Also getting a new name are the NLA/LNA and NLB/LNB. The country's top flight will now be known as the Super League, while the NLB will be called the Challenge League. The main idea behind the change is marketing. The SFL will also sell the Super League and Challenge League name to sponsors (like it is done in Austria). No sponsors have been announced just yet, but sponsorships are almost final according to SFL officials. The reason the new names are in English, is so that all three regions in the country can have the same name for the league. I don't know what to think of all this. It will take me a while to get used to it...
2003/04 Super League (10 teams) Grasshoppers Basel Xamax Young Boys Servette FC Zurich Thun FC Wil Aarau St. Gallen 2003/04 Challenge League (16 teams) Luzern La Chaux-deFonds Vaduz Delemont Kriens Concordia Schaffhausen Baden Yverdon Wohlen Bellinzona Winterthur Meyrin Malcantone Agno Bulle Chiasso
This will take some getting used to. I guess if it helps solidify the finances of the teams, I am for it. But I was a fan of the LNA/LNB.
Look, in Austria first there was the max.bundesliga (max. was a phone company) and now we've got the T-Mobile Bundesliga (T-Mobile took over max.) and the Red Zac Erste Liga (Red Zac is a electronic hardware distributer)...It sucks but we all had to get used to it, and so we did...
What to do when you've got four different official languages yet want to sell the naming rights and project a single brand? Go with English, of course. Now if only the EU could agree on English as the official language. No, I'm not holding my breath...