Its official in 05/06 the Portuguese league is reduce to 16 teams its official all parties agree, its official 16 teams in 05/06, in 04/05 the last 5 teams will go to the II liga. the 16 teams was also a request by FIFA __________________
This also frees 4 dates in which the clubs, especially the Big 3, can schedule friendlies against the big clubs, like FC Porto is doing against Barcelona on November 16, during the season.
16 teams make sense in a small nation like Portugal. However, UEFA may find it a bit less convincing to nations of 20 million or more like England, Italy and Spain. They likely would want to keep it at current levels. The Premiership makes a lot of money for 20 clubs. I doubt they want to reduce it to 16 because that would leave clubs like Wolves and Bolton out. The bigger question is whether the new Superliga would be good enough for the major clubs. I brought this up at the Attendence thread. What if they decided that the other clubs won't give them the competition they want? There was talk not long ago of a proposal to form an Atlantic league. That would have included the big clubs from Scotland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal. The G14 also discussed forming a league. In both cases, UEFA must have told them that they wouldn't approve such a league. Even with that, the door isn't completely closed on a transnational superleague. The reasons are simple: Money and Prestige. Let's face it, the big Portuguese clubs are basically bored with facing the same minnows year-in and year-out. The only excitement in the Superliga is when a big club occasionally stumbles to a draw or defeat here and there and how many points between first and second place. Compare that to Spain, where Deportivo could lose at home to a club that's 17th on the table and even Barcelona can't get an easy win. It's the toughest league to compete in and also, presumably, why it's the top league in UEFA right now. I'm sure that SL Benfica, SC Portugal and FC Porto have thought of joining La Liga at one time or another. Even if no one would say publically for fear of a backlash, it has to be in the back in their minds. Of course, there are drawbacks to this plan, including potentially negative fan reaction and the fact that they'll have to be more competitive just to survive in that league. But they would gain tremendous prestige and revenues that they wouldn't get from staying in the current league. La Liga also would gain by expanding its footprint into another EU nation, including the Lisbon and Oporto markets and the Portuguese ex-pats in the Americas. I don't know if they can if they wanted to, since UEFA could put a stop to it, but both countries are members of the EU. So far, there hasn't been a concerted effort to challenge the UEFA statutes at the EU level but I think one is coming, either from the G14 or from the UK. If that happens, I predict that the EU would allow transnational leagues under certain conditions, probably meaning if clubs want to form a league with clubs of a neighboring country, like Holland and Belgium or Scotland and England or Portugal and Spain.