Wow 18k at Oberliga there has really been some big matches this season outside top 3 nationwide leagues. Rot-Weiss Essen and Schwarz-Weiss Essen derby 15k and Preussen Münster also had a match with a bumper crowd. For old Traditionsvereins that not doing well and falls out of big leagues might be good for them to fall down to lower levels play matches they can win or against old local rivals.
Yes, it can be good if they don't stay too long at that level. A big disadvantage of the current 4th level (Regionalliga) is that there are not as many local derbies as at the old Oberliga format, while the traveling costs for teams and fans increased. Hopefully the RL reform weakens this effect without creating a bigger gap between 3. Liga and RL standard.
What I dont really get about the new regionalliga reform is the new Südwest liga. Until now you had a west staffel with teams from Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz and Saar. While Staffel South was made by Bavaria, Hessen and Baden-Württemberg. You can discuss wether Nordrhein-Westfalen and Bavaria are so big they should have their own Regionalligas, but put Baden-Württemberg, Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz and Saar in one regionalliga? If you look at regionalliga teams this year. NRW and Bavaria needs something like 10 new teams from oberliga to make 18 teams plus both on oberliga level are divided in 2-3 staffeln that means a lot of teams has to be promoted from Verbandsliga and landesliga. This is ok if the Südwest liga already has 17-18 teams from this years regionalliga. How unequal is that???????
Yes, that was a more or less even division distribution. In the North and East there were larger distances, but not so many inhabitants, and in the West and South the number of inhabitants and the distances were comparable. The new system looks like the DFB made 4 divisions and then saw, oh we forgot the North-Italians. Lets create an own-division with Bavarian village teams.
but the same lookin with a regionalliga purely made of NRW teams so Südwest ends up being the garbage can of regionalliga.
The new RL set up is a political compromise. Many people outside of Germany probably don't know this, but the DFB is made up of powerful regional FAs. Until the 1960s those actually dominated the German FA and for a long time prevented the creation of a nationwide legue, as it was against their interest to have a 1st division that was directly controlled by the national FA, instead of multiple leagues controlled by the regional FAs. Their power has lessened, with the introduction of pro football and the bigger importance of the NT in economic terms, but they still control lower division leagues. The main criterium for comparing regional FAs used by the DFB has always been membership numbers, not area size, population etc. The Bavarian FA is by far the biggest state FA in Germany - them getting their own RL is pretty much justifiable, as they alone are as big as the Northern German FA (made up of 4 state FAs), twice as big as the Eastern German FA (made up of 6 state FAs) and almost as big as the Western German FA (made up of 3 state FAs). As the Bavarian FA was opposed to keeping the Regionalliga at all a compromise was worked out - the Bavarians got their own Regionalliga in exchange for voting for the reform. Doing so, however, they also had to give the equaly powerful Western German FA their own RL. That's left the rest of the Southern as well as the two Southwestern FAs, both too small to get their own league alone (the North Eastern FA is also relatively small, but for political reasons they couldn't split them up). So the new Southwestern league was created. But as the FAs forming the new league are put together now bigger than the FAs forming the other 4 RLs the South West got an additional spot in the promotion play off in exchange.
Darmstadt got 17k in their last match of the season as well. However, the lack of TV income alone makes it hard for clubs to survive in the RL in the long run. Strangely, the bigger the club the harder it is probably to survive in the Regionalliga in the long run. A club like Magdeburg simplay has much higher costs and fan expectations than say Meuselwitz.
Sponsors like this don't expect a return for their investment - they want to pump money into "their" club, not the club with the biggest chance of success. Corporate sponsors like Red Bull are the exception, most big money sponsors in the lower divisions have a personal connection to the clubs they support.
Yes I have noticed that on regionalliga level the bigger the clubs are the more difficult to survive. I dont know why but seems to be unlogical since it should be an advantage to have extra income from more fans when you dont have any TV income. There must be some big loans somewhere that makes the situation hard for those clubs or else I cant see the logic at all why it is happening.
Well I think everybody trying to understand the new regionalliga reform thinks it was a political matter. What I fail to understand is why they didnt make 6 regionalleagues instead of 5 to loosen the Südwest situation. I know both seen from political and inhabitant number this is fairly fair, but seen from the number of clubs already in regionalliga from these areas compared to all others Promotion seem to be completely unfair compared to the rest of the country. If you look at it this way in how many each of the 5 regionalleagues has of clubs playing already in regionalleague its something like this: Regionalliga Nord: 8 teams so 10 promotion spots open. Regionalliga Nordost: 9 teams so 9 promotion spots open. Regionalliga West: 13 teams so 5 promotion spots open. Regionalliga Bayern: 7 teams so 11 spots open. Regionalliga Südwest: 17 teams so 1 spot open. 1 spot open for a regionalliga Südwest compromising 4 states and one of them is a fairly big state Baden-Württemberg with 10 million people only 2 million fever than Bavaria. Again ok its political, but it seems extremely unfair for the Südwest compared to what the rest of Germany gains.
Again, one important thing to keep in mind - population, current league set-up etc. aren't very relevant to the decision. The DFB thinks in terms of state and regional FAs. Random example: State X has 1 million inhabitants, of which 100k are in a soccer club State Y has 10 million inhabitants, of which 95k are in a soccer club Within the DFB State X has more weight, because the size of the FA matters, not how many people live in the state, or how big it is. Now: a) the DFL was opposed to increasing the number of RLs - and the DFL has veto right within the DFB these days, thanks to the almighty Euro. So a compromise had to be worked out that kept the number of leagues as low as possible. b) The South Western FAs are too small to get a RL on their own. Even together they are half the size of the Bavarian FA. So they had to be joined up with someone. The only two options were West or creating a new league with BW and Hesse. Not much different size wise, so the factors of a) the West wanting it's own league and b) Southwest, BW and Hesse all being Southern German won out. And as mentioned, in exchange they got 2 play off spots (instead of the single one everyone else got).
Well, almost every big club in the lower division got their because of financial difficulties. So yeah, there are usually debts, but: - they also have higher infrastructure costs (stadium, employees, youth academies...) - they can't easily reduce the costs for players. People in Memmingen might be happy to watch amateur players at the Regionalliga level, but in Magdeburg you need pros to keep the interest (attendance and sponsors). They need to field a team that can go up, or it's a slow suicide. For Meuselwitz, just staying in year after year is cool, and they don't need a super expensive squad. Hessen Kassel needs to go up sooner or later - while already having to spend much more than the small teams to finance a team that has the chance to go up in the first place. If they start to get cheaper squads at the cost of becoming a mid table team they risk collapse. And match day income will only get you so far at this level - the higher attendance will barely cover the additional costs for debts and infrastructure the bigger club has, but the real money in soccer comes either from TV, or big sponsors (and those tend to go to smaller clubs they can control, or to clubs that already play Bundesliga).
Isnt it a chicken or egg discussion? Surely the bigger clubs has bigger infrastructure..... but if Memmingen can manage with something more simple so can Essen or Mannheim also do, its a matter of cut downs though. Seen from my view we are then back at a situation where we can conclude that the directors in the big clubs just dont have the balls to admit that cut downs are needed when they are needed. Its the plight of every management to also take the bitter decisions when needed, that is common sense. Really if they could do that they would soon have better means than Memmingen so they could be promoted to 3.liga and get TV Money.
I am 100% with you about these political issues. However implementing new organisations is also usuallu about not revolutionise too much. it really seems odd that Bavaria can promote so many teams next year when the Südwest teams cant. In my point of view it makes some problems in making promotion relegation system be looking organic. Its simply too unfair that you cant help notice. The real problem is sport is a very sensive area. Sport has some very soft issues and we fans or sportmembers sees the development as soft issues. Offcourse Sport is also about politics as in all aspects of life it just can help, but I think sporting politicians forgets that if the politics looks too obvious as in this case they can get image wise problems in the long run. People in changemanagement business would often advice the involved people in cheating the fans and members in creating an illusion that doesnt look so political. The problem here is that it looks too political.
In some areas it's pretty hard to make cuts, though - stadium costs for one thing. It's a huge drag having to maintain a 30k seat stadium if you get attendance of 5k or less, but on the other hand you can hardly get rid of the stadium. In other areas cuts are possible, e.g. youth development - but would really hurt the club in the long run. The best way to cut costs is definitely player salaries. But: there's the problem of the uneven playing field. Clubs don't have to compete with Memmingen for promotion, but with reserve sides and clubs bankrolled by sponsors who do not have to operate under the same restrictions. Without pro players it's impossible to keep up with Wolfsburg or Bayern II, or RB Leipzig. Kind of a vicious circle.
Well, the problem is that the number of possible solutions was very limited from the start. The DFL would have vetoed any decision with more than five Regionalligas, and they knew that the possible fan backlash would be very limited (sadly, the majority of Bundesliga fans doesn't care enough about RL football to impress the DFL). And with 5 RLs, the possible set ups are pretty limited. North and North East are no brainers, which leaves 3 regional FAs and 3 RLs, but one of the regional FAs is to small to support it's own league. Leaves limited options, really.
Finally the drama is over - on the very LAST day of the 2011 season Koblenz got the Regionalliga license, after the DFB pushed back the deadline for them twice. It seems that promotion and relegation in Germany work now after the "we make shit up as we go along" method, as for no particular reason relegated TSV Havelse was also granted a place in the Regionalliga (the league will play with one club more next year). Well, the real reason is that Havelse would have stayed in the league if Koblenz had gone bust, and so didn't know where to play either until yesterday. Still, the whole thing was a farce. Why bother with deadlines and relegation at all if you start to decide shit randomly? I always tend to stick up for the clubs, and don't wish either club any bad, it's just out of principle.
I'll bump this thread because 1)Regionalliga teams deserve some love (I somehow started to follow the Stuttgarter Kickers as closely as I could, and I'm not able to tell why) and 2) to ask a question that has probably sprung up sometime in the last 27 pages of the topic but it's late and I'm lazy so I'm going to ask it anyway: Why the hell do they even bother to keep the reserve teams in the league? Reserve teams present no interest whatsoever, they take space that could be used by traditionsverein, worse, they freaking repulse crowds. Surely the DFB could be bothered think of something to bunch them all in a separate league system altogether? Considering the number of II/III etc teams in the league system, it'd be one hell of a hassle, but it could be worth it in the long run. I know they put up limits on it with the formation of the new RLs (7 by group, I think?), but it's still too much imo.
It's in the interest of the big clubs to have their reserve sides play against opponents that are as good as possible, that's why.
Yeah - the Bundesliga clubs have no interest in creating a reserve league. And they have veto power within the DFB - more than once they have threatened to block any reform that would include the return of a reserve league (little known fact: there used to be a reserve league in Germany, but it was abolished in the 90s). That's just a token gesture. There are 5 Regionalligas, which can hold up to 7 reserve teams each (reseve teams may move between the Regionalligas in case there would be too many in one league). That's 35 teams. Given the Bundesligas have only 36 teams - that's not really a big sacrifice for them. The good parts of the RL reform are the lower requirements for participating clubs, as well as (hopefully) more financial stability due to more regionalized play. The return of the German amateur championship, doubling as promotion play-offs for the RL, could also be interesting.
Damn the pro clubs then. And that's forgetting that they can get promoted to 3. Liga (albeit I think it's only for 1. Bundesliga clubs?)
2nd Bundesliga reserves could be promoted as well. Either way - that's the status quo already, so this has no impact on the number of reserve sides either. The only thing improving the situation is the increase in Regionalliga clubs, the "limit" has close to zero effect is all I'm saying (reserves of 3. Liga clubs won't be able to play RL anymore, though - however, that's a cosmetic change at best).
Theres also a principal issue structural wise. As most clubs arent pro clubs in the americain way of thinking but amateur sports associations with a top side thats pro, means that the clubs has reserve side III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII etc........ In theory everybody wanting to play for a famous club can do this. so why only II teams should play a reserve league why not all the others? The you begins to touch at the very principles of european football pyramid.