The future of the Czech league: Reduce, expand or merge?

A lengthy three-month winter break means a very boring period for any football fan and it's no different in the Czech Republic where, during the time, there's not really much happening beyond a couple of meaningless games, occasional 5-a-side cups or a traditional New Year's Eve Derby between the former Sparta and Slavia players. Most of the talk during the winter is then dedicated to foreign leagues, looking back to the glory days or "the glory days" of the Czech clubs and anything that can be even barely considered as a transfer rumour. And, of course, to the ways of improving the Gambrinus liga.

The latter mentioned has been debated for years but now there seems to be a slightly higher intensity of the discussion. There are more reasons to that but as it stands at the moment, it mostly goes down to the sad fact that the improvement of the league within the last five years has been doubtful, if any.

Tomáš Rosický at the start of his career in 2000

At the start of the last decade Sparta were the leading force of the Czech club football; regularly getting into the group stages of the Champions League, they were bringing points to the Czech club coefficient and money to other Czech teams when buying their best players. The Gambrinus liga wasn't so weakened as it would have seemed though. Other teams have done remarkably well at times - Liberec's run in the UEFA Cup in 2001/2002 was definitely the most magical but Slavia or Žižkov have also produced some fine moments.

Over the last five years though, Sparta have been losing their sheer dominance in Gambrinus liga. As the club could not get into the group stages of the Champions League, the board had to cut down their budget and start to look out for players elsewhere. This had two various effects on Gambrinus liga as a whole. The title race has become as open as ever over the period - Sparta have won just two of the last five campaigns - but the quality has undoubtedly gone down, as the only Czech side to take part in Champions League group stages were Slavia in 2007/2008 after eliminating Žilina and Ajax in the preliminary rounds. The 'Bayern effect' of Sparta - a dominant team in the league performing well in Europe - has considerably faded, as well as its benefits - the points into the coefficient. It's also the growing power of scouting that lures players at a very young age abroad, which leads to the lack of quality youth emerging throughout the league.

All this has been on the table for some time already, but it was the direct encounter between Žilina and Sparta for a Champions League spot in August - which Žilina won 3-0 on aggregate - that clinched the public view of a decline within the Czech club football. Combined with the fact that the Czech national team didn't make it to the World Cup finals (and Slovakia did, from the same group), it seemed like the last straw.

Sparta Praha's doomsgame against Žilina

However, to say that the Slovakian football is in a much better position is a bold statement. The problems in Slovakia are worrying to the same, if not greater extent. It's so easy to start dwelling on the negatives as there are plenty of them - from poor attendances in the stands to the amount of debts within clubs. On the other hand though, the way how the state of things in both Czech and Slovakian club football could be bettered to the benefit of everyone involved, seems to be just too obvious to overlook.

Should a merge of top 10 Czech and 6 Slovakian sides into a joint league be introduced, it would bring great profit to the teams - a bigger market with better sponsors, more spectators at the grounds (as there would be new quality opponents instead of the, well, old and boring ones) as well as renewed derbies between Sparta and Slovan, or Baník and Trnava. That the level of the club football in the countries would rise is almost certain.

As far as UEFA and the Czech and Slovakian association are concerned, it's a more complex one. This plan would serve magnificently to Platini's aim of lifting the prestige of the smaller teams and leagues. The UEFA chief himself has declared an admiration to the project, having said that "what the politicians split, the football could reunite." FIFA and UEFA apparently do seem to have sort of a Messiah complex when it comes to these kinds of issues (which was captured brilliantly just a month ago in Zürich when choosing the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups). However, the whole thing is trapped a bit, as UEFA regulations themselves don't enable such proposal, so the further talks of the 'federal league' are very much in doubt.

Honestly though, the CZ&SK league would be fantastic. It's something all fans would appreciate and with the right, positive approach and PR from the executives it could all get a lot more interesting. A fresh start, maybe, if we are to get optimistic. Take Austrian Bundesliga - its quality could be at least on par with the current Czech league, but not the Austrian approach to the football - from players, fans, media. The average attendances are around 8,500 (OK, it's got a lot to do with the quality of the stadia, but then look at Eden), the players are not always the most technically gifted but there's willingness and effort, something which is missing badly in the Czech Republic.

The empty stands at the Strahov Stadium

It's not that the CZ&SK league would become the new Premier League. It never will. There's no denying that the CZ&SK would still be a 'transition league' for players but in a longer term it could at least hold back young players from going abroad (and clubs selling them) immediately as any offer comes up. It could bring a couple of hundreds/thousands people more to the stands and the projects for further developments to the stadia could kick on. This all is just my personal fantasy and dreams, but ones surely not too wide off the mark. What's certain, though, is that we have to wait until the final decision from UEFA.

Apart from all that, other proposals to change the format of the league have also been discussed. We can certainly leave aside the possibilities of establishing a league cup or expanding the number of the teams in the league to 20. The ideas behind these two options are not mad - both are trying to bring more games to the Czech football, when clearly there are not too many of them. Sparta played their last two European cup games in 2010 after the Gambrinus liga had already fallen asleep in its winter break.

The league cup could feature some Slovakian teams, with 20 teams in the league there would be greater room for youngsters to get some playing time. However, while in theory this all sounds reasonable, I'm really curious about who would still be there to see a game between the likes of Příbram and Vlašim (with all due respect). To introduce a league cup, never mind the Slovakian teams, when there's sadly but clearly no one interested in the Czech cup itself, it sounds like a joke for the Czech fans.

Dušan Svoboda, the chief of the Gamrinus league assembly

The reduction of the teams in the Gambrinus liga from 16 to 10 is the only serious prospect left. There's not much to argue about on paper. 36 games instead of today's 30, more attractive, if not new opponents, and, presumably, better attendances; we could also see a rise in the quality level of the second and the third tier.

In fact though, I'm not convinced that the reduction would help the Czech club football. Even if I take aside my personal feeling about the lack of ambition in the decision, there are a couple of points to be made. If we look at the attendances in Hungary or Slovakia, they certainly weren't higher after the reduction in 2001 and 2000, respectively. We can see a decrease in Slovakia at all the clubs apart from the top 4. This downgrade in attendances was permanent with the one-off exception in 2005/2006 when Trnava won the league and the average number of people in the stands of Antonín Malatínský Stadium at that time was 9,219, which then hyped the whole number in Slovakia. In Hungary, the reduction to 12 clubs lasted only 4 years before turning back to the 16-team system. The reduction would also mean very hard times for the 6 teams being relegated to the second league. As well as a massive downgrade in their attendances, it would cut them off from the vital amounts of the sponsor money.

It looks that the CZ&SK league is the only long-term option which could lead the Czech and Slovakian football to something better. It's not perfect - the clubs would have to travel more and less of them would make it to Europe. My views on it are maybe too optimistic, but what else we've got? We can preserve the situation as it is, we can introduce two senseless options, or we could reduce the number of the teams in the league, which wouldn't effectively make it better - it would only make it less boring. The CZ&SK league, though, is something what makes your stomach tickle inside. Even more so, after you see Slovan and Sparta play each other in front of 9,500.

An excellent view on the possible CZ&SK league merge by Play Waved On at IBWM as well as Britski Belasi's bits and pieces about the topic are really worth a read as well.