Ka-pi96 said:
Good. Maybe that will push them towards a Dutch/Belgian joint league. I'd love to see that! |
There would be a lot of questions about that though
- How does promotion between the professional and amateur divisions work? Do they also get unified?
- Will both countries have a guaranteed amount of teams in the top league? A joint league is nice, but nobody would like a league which for 70% is made up of Dutch teams, or 70% Belgian teams
- Will Dutch and Belgian teams have to share their tickets for the Champions League and Europa League, or will they still each get a total of 5 spots? Because if a joint league only gets 2 Champions League spots (1 group stage, 1 qualifiers) and 3 Europa League spots (1 group stage, 2 qualifiers) chances of qualifying for the Champions League suddenly goes down A LOT for all clubs.
Also, I'm not sure how laws such as taxes work in both countries. Imagine if a player at a Dutch club pays 30% taxs on a €1mil salary while a player at a Belgium club pays 40% for a €1mil salary, that's unfair competition. The player at the Dutch club would make $700k while the player at the Belgian club makes $600k, yet they both cost the same for the clubs.
Also, I doubt mid-table clubs and all clubs beneath that will agree with it. Assuming a BeNeLegue would be 18 teams with 9 from each country, that would mean finishing 10th would see you getting relegated to the 2nd tier. For teams who've been playing at the highest level for years if not decades and have adjusted their finances to that to suddenly get relegated for finishing 10th would probably be devastating financially.
