Spanish and Portuguese Leagues Discuss Iberian League Talks

The presidents of the Portuguese Football League(LPFP) and the Professional Football LeagueSpanish (LFP) held a meeting in which they discussed the possibility of creating an Iberian competition. The Portuguese agency reported this meeting through a statement and considered it “a first step” in its aim to launch during this quadrennium one “Iberian League”.
A spokesman said the idea LPFP bypasses merge the two competitions, but to create a new format which is still under discussion . The promoter of this initiative is now exárbitro Portuguese Pedro Proenca , who since last July has chaired the organization.

“It’s all open, an object taken by our president to help internationalize the Portuguese League and allow increasing revenues (clubs), “the same sources detailed.

In this regard, they emphasized that the discussion is still in its infancy and remains to decide both which teams would participate in the new competition , and in what format would take place and above all on what dates, the main problem due to saturation calendar.

Proença and the meeting between the president of the LFP Javier Tebas, occurred this morning in Madrid in order to”strengthen ties and develop future initiatives in an unprecedented alliance” between the two entities.

The idea of creating an Iberian competition was already on the table in the past, and in fact in 2010, coinciding with the two countries’ joint bid to host the 2018 World Cup which was then defeated by Russia, sources LFPF confirmed the existence of contacts with his Spanish counterpart to study this possibility.

Editor’s Note: Barcelona vs Benfica, Real Madrid vs FC Porto, sounds good doesn’t it. Unfortunately I can’t see this getting off the ground…..yet. Although it does raise the wider question of “Is this where Football goes next”, not quite a European Superleague but more Regional Leagues to amalgamate the best European Clubs into say half a dozen leagues.

The Premier League is it’s own standalone beast so there’s no talk of that being merged with anything but then there is always the rumours of Rangers and Celtic joining the English Ranks but frankly I think that shipped has sailed. If only for a couple of reasons, the gap between English Football and these two sides has got too big and why would anyone below the Top 6 in the Premier League vote for this as it would only make it even more difficult to be the best of the rest.

But what you could have is the Iberian League for Spanish and Portuguese Clubs and an Atlantic League for Dutch, Scottish and Scandinavian sides and maybe even a French/Belgian Merger. I suppose the next question would be how would this effect tournaments like the Champions League?. Well to be honest I have no idea how the wider logistics would work if at all and then you have the biggest stumbling block being would UEFA allow the dissolution of league borders.

With the status quo of Football seemingly set now thanks to Russian and Arab Money plus the restrictions of FFP (albeit relaxed over the Summer) the sport has to be careful the bubble doesn’t eventually burst as fans get bored of the same teams winning the same things year in year out and the chasm in the European Football between the haves and the have nots gets even wider. So Regional European Leagues could be some way to re-addressing the balance.

Of course Super League’s have been mooted regularly over the past 15-20 years and nothing ever really happens (bar maybe the expansion of the Champions League to 32 clubs to quell the threat from the G-14 back in the early 2000’s) so this is just fanciful talk but it certainly could have some legs further down the line. It will get shot down this time around but don’t be surprised if it rears it head in 5-10 years time.