What will the Swiss championship look like from the 2021-2022 season? Will the Super League include twelve (or fourteen) teams – and not ten according to the formula adopted in 2003 – as seems to wish a majority of clubs? Will there still be two professional leagues in our country?
As we look at the pyramid of Swiss football and its future, the questions jostle, more than the answers. If a change of formula returns today on the table, it is because it is also linked to the renegotiation of the famous TV rights. Last fall, the Swiss Football League also presented a new modus (transition to twelve clubs in the elite, return from a final round and a relegation round, reintroduction of play-offs, Challenge League unchanged) . But in the face of hostility from representatives of the 1st league, faced with a fait accompli and considering themselves injured, the project was withdrawn even before being put to the vote. A snub for the leaders of the SFL who, last November, then created a working committee to study the proposed reform, or even present new proposals. However, hardly created, this group no longer exists after a single session, the victim of political and sports lobbying which was right for the reformists’ desire for change. “The League is not run, one of our antennas masks on condition of anonymity. We are faced with a bunch of civil servants who cling to their posts. Their only goal is that nothing will move. “
A redesigned map
However, faced with the stillness of the environment, clubs are stepping up to the plate, aware of the need to urgently open up a substantive debate. Others say they are ready to follow suit. Apart from the classic formula already discussed (transition to twelve clubs in the elite), a trend has been emerging for a few weeks, not far from being revolutionary: behind a Super League “inflated” with fourteen teams (39 matches over three rounds), which would concentrate professional football in our country, the Challenge League would become semi-professional, with the creation of two groups of ten teams defined according to geographic criteria. Not content with absorbing the current Promotion League, which has found neither its function nor its audience, this new Challenge League, with considerably softened admission criteria, notably with regard to infrastructure, would be above all a training league. At the third rung of the pyramid, the 1st league would find its three original groups, of sixteen participants each, again united on one floor. Several predominantly German-speaking clubs (including Grasshopper) are behind this deal which, if it were to be ratified, would significantly change the landscape of Swiss football.
Also a supporter of a major overhaul of the championship, Lausanne-Sport is following with interest the development of the file, of which it is one of the most involved. “The vision of LS, says Stefan Nellen, its vice-president, is that things have to be changed. Ten clubs at the top of the ladder is not enough. We want twelve anyway, but we are not opposed to fourteen, sixteen or even eighteen if it turns out that it is the best solution. What matters is being able to reach a consensus. It would be useless to present a formula which has no chance of passing. “
Listen to the technicians
Sixty kilometers further west, Servette also pleads for a separation between assumed professionalism (1st division) and formative league (2nd division). “When renegotiating TV rights,” explains Constantin Georges, “we must be able to offer an attractive product. However, it seems to us that we are discussing criteria which are not objective. Let us be frank: in the state, the Challenge League is a complete heresy. “In his arguments, the general manager of the Geneva club insists on a crucial point, too often clear in touch according to him:” We have the feeling that the technicians n have no say, when they are the ones who know the file best. Swiss football finds itself at a crossroads. In this crossroads, it is a question of not finding oneself in a dead end. If the status quo were to prevail, it would be a huge waste. “
If it already benefits from the apparent support of technicians and other trainers, in particular those of the ASF, this formula of “14, 2 x 10 and 3 x 16” also delights Fritz Aeschbach, the stainless president of FC Échallens, who ‘he has been running for twenty years. “Today, analyzes our interlocutor, there is a potential for 14 clubs in the Super League, both in terms of economic means and the question of stadiums. The real problem comes from the Challenge League. In its current form, there is no substance to survive in this category, and too many constraints. You have to stop creating time bombs that always explode and to do that lower the admission criteria. “
In this thorny dossier made up of disparate interests, the boss of Trois-Sapins occupies a prominent position linked to his role on the Council of the Association (all the sections are represented, as well as the central committee), called to endorse any reform. “Today, says Aeschbach, the growing number of foreign players in the Challenge League is hampering the formation of our hopes.”
On the Maladière side, Jean-François Collet, new owner of Xamax (and also vice-president of the SFL), defends the initial project. “I have always been in a twelve-man Super League. At ten, there are too many clubs in danger, with potentially dramatic financial consequences. Every year it’s hot and not very healthy. ”For Christian Binggeli’s successor, there is“ no time to start a complete restructuring of Swiss football. ”
Monday meeting in Bern
One thing is certain: whatever formula is discussed, asking the question of the championship mode is like opening Pandora’s box. The subjects of reflection, of divergences – and often of annoyances – multiply. “We have an opportunity as unique as it is obligatory to review this formula in its entirety, if we want to envisage with legitimacy and optimism a real future for Swiss football, believes Pablo Iglesias, sporting director of LS. Whatever the final decision, it should not be limited to a single vision, but take into account several important parameters, such as that of the training of our young players. ”
Cleavant, the question of the formula should supposedly be the subject of an extraordinary assembly of the League again this spring. Next Monday already, in Bern, on the sidelines of the Swiss Football Academy Awards to be held at the Kursaal, a new working meeting – and probably of crisis – must bring together, under the aegis of the SFL, all the actors of Super and Challenge League. Impossible to know what could come out of it.
Three questions to Claudius Schäfer
Claudius Schäfer, in the search for a new championship mode, what position does the Swiss Football League defend?
Given the questions linked to future TV rights, it is a matter of quickly knowing which direction we want to go. Two variants exist: the status quo or the transition to twelve clubs in the Super League. We must find the path that pleases a large majority of clubs, while knowing that changing something always involves risks.
Some clubs argue in favor of a concentration of professionalism in a single Super League open to fourteen clubs, the Challenge League becoming a training league …
Such a paradigm shift would raise enormous questions. But there is no time to make a revolution. Today, we have to move forward with the answers we have. In the longer term, will there still be two professional leagues in Switzerland in five years or ten years? This also raises questions about the future meaning of the Challenge League.
In your eyes, does an ideal formula exist?
Each formula has advantages and disadvantages. If I could tell you what would be best for the future of Swiss football, I would be superman! Former President of the Rangers and the Scottish Federation, Campbell Ogilvie slipped one day: “After 25 years in football, I can tell you that the championship mode chosen will be, for many people, the wrong one.” I can very well understand. N.JR
Created: 15.01.2020, 22.54
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