A New Top 5 League? | The BeNeliga Explained 

Imagine a Balkan league, the fans would be more interesting than the games

As a international fan this would be great but I definetley feel bad for the smaller teams that have been always competing in the first division would be dropped down to second division.

Nice video. Eredivisie is the 7th league in UEFA’s ranking though. It only changed after Ajax win on Young boys.

1830 : Nowp we don't want to be part of the Netherlands anymore 2020 : Can we come play football with you guys 👉👈

As long as there is a system of promotion and relegation, I think the Beneliga could become universally beneficial for both countries’ football systems

If we make the Beneliga would come, we should make the cups seperate

I'm not Dutch nor Belgian, but from entertainment perspective, yeah I think BeNeliga will be very attractive and entertaining. But the key thing is that both Dutch and Belgian team must keep top-quality players and keep produce potential players. They can't do it now because they need money and their respective league is not considered as 'challenging league' by players. If BeNeliga will make the league considered challenging and make teams can keep and produce top quality player, then BeNeliga is a necessity.

Update : this morning all 25 clubs affiliated to belgian pro football (D1 + D1B) agreed to work their way into a BeNeLeague project. So the small belgian clubs agreed aswell as long as they don't forget to make the new 1st belgian division in a good way for them.

If this did happen the BeNeLiga would quickly overtake the French League.

If the BeNeliga were a thing, maybe there could be national 3rd divisions instead of just leaving those smaller clubs out, and maybe 1-2 teams from each national division get promoted into the BeNeliga 2?

This is so important for competitiveness but also could help France with being a step up from this league. I hope for top 6 leagues

All my homies hate Bartemeo for accepting the European Super Leagues

Here in the Netherlands, everyone except the big teams is still against it. Even the fans of those big clubs

I would most definitely watch it, I think it'd be more as if you were combining the austrian and hungarian leagues then it you were making a super league especially with the revenue these clubs make, it'd be foolish to use it as a tool to create the super league

As an Ajax fan I believe there would be more benefits from the beneliga than limitations. I acknowledge that the smaller teams would have less chance of qualifying for Europe but the overall standards and quality of both Dutch and Belgian teams would rise which will make both the first division and second division more competitive. I would go as far as having a joint 3rd division too because we both have enough professional teams to form a 20 team league in 3rd division so the smaller teams have extra matches which might compensate being less on live TV. Holland and Belgium would've been 1 joint country anyway if it wasn't for petty religious reasons in the 19th century and we're very similar people so this idea will be more smooth and logical in my opinion compared to the European Super League which is mainly based on GREED and ELITISM and should be rejected.

An example you might look at is the MLS - where Canada joins the America league. The case a little different because at the time there was no domestic league at all (the Canadian Prem is just 1 year old at the moment), but the case of combining two countries due to pragmatism does exist in the global structure already.

As an Anderlecht fan: this will help Belgian teams a lot, as we let us do too easily. If players who play in Belgium would play in The Netherlands, their worth would be x 2. Altough we are in a 100 million dept and have our weakest squad since so long, + we own the most Pro Leagues (34) so they can come back in 5 years when we are out of dept 🤷‍♂️

Loving your content, Fiago! One of the best football channels around. I would definitely watch the BeNeLiga. Very exciting. But certainly risky.

Great video, I would definitely watch the BeNeliga.

I think this is good idea, I really like football in Belgium, Netherlands and Portuguese and I think this could be their opportunity to break through, also beneliga could give some money (like 5%) to boost second division (Ajax and PSV are doing it in Netherlands I believe) so it could be better for smaller clubs, also great opportunity to give spots to smaller leagues and maybe even 5th spot for prem

I’m from Belgium so I think I may judge about this: I would love to see this because now, no teams from Belgium or the Netherlands only even have a small chance to win the ucl (except for Ajax ‘18-‘19 of course), but I don’t think this will ever happen. This has been a topic for almost 30 years already, but there are always too many opposites. IF it would happen, I’m 100% sure that this will become a mayor League, because the worst teams of this league, are above average in the Belgian and Dutch league. Those teams are better than teams like: Elche 🇪🇸 , Sheffield 🇬🇧 , Parma 🇮🇹, ... So the top 5-leagues would (in the beginning )still have better teams, but it will be more close. Oh and one other thing, Anderlecht has a great history and always were the best team of Belgium, but in the last 3 years, they have really been struggling and teams like Antwerp are much better at the moment.

😂😂 He coughed those teams ! So funny ! Great video man

Great video! So surprised to see that this channel barely has 10k subs, definitely deserves many more for this type of quality content

If the BeNeLeague gets the green light from UEFA, the floodgates for other multi-national leagues could be opened. Like for example a Nordic league, or Alps League (Switzerland and Austria)

Understood this concept now. I think it’s a great idea. Thanks Fiago for the info👍

Honestly im looking forward to this

This experiment has a lot of pros and cons and I think that to balance it we could try putting the two country cups together and see how that goes and then decide from there if a beneliga is a good idea. Also it would be fun to include Luxembourg as well

You can make a video for the Balkan League. As a Bulgarian, I hope to create such a league, because the separate championships of the Balkan countries are not strong (perhaps the exception is the Greek one). So there would be more competition and even direct odds without qualifications for the Champions League groups. And the level of football in this part of Europe may improve.

I really hope the Beneliga will be real soon! My team of FC Groningen will probably be in it :D

"How dare Ajax and PSV prefer to play against Brugge and Antwerp instead of the all mighty FC Emmen?"

Amazing videos, great presentation style. Salute!

17:05 Awesome videos Fiago :) Being an 'international' fan, I think a Beneliga would be a great thing. I request you to make more videos like these or create videos on "alternate" league ideas: Balkan League, Iberian League, the Great British League, etc. Thank you.

Great idea. As somebody from England who knows the teams like ajax, psv, feyenoord, anderlecht, club Brugge, genk and standard leige this would make me more likely to watch.

Portuguese here, really hope this doesn't happen and there are two reasons for it: The first one is that I really enjoy both leagues in their current structures. Over the years, I'd watch some games from both Eredivisie and Jupiler League at the weekends and, from what I can tell, the leagues have improved a lot in the last ten years (especially in Belgium) and seeing some clubs being "relegated" to a secondary division, while knowing they've made really great progress over the last decade... it would be a shame. The second reason is that it would jeopardize the identity of the clubs and fan bases. Local rilvaries would be lost and there would be no glory in being the best club in the country, since nobody would be competing for that... they would be competing for the supposed BeNeliga title. Also, your club might represent a city, a region or even a neighbourhood, but when playing in Europe, you knew they would also be representing their own country and the reputation of its football structure... with the BeNeliga, what would they be representing? Their own country or the BeNeliga? Weird times lie ahead of us...

Fiago, thank you so much for video.

Great content bro! Keep it up

I have read that If the league becomes a reality, the remaining spots that would be left free could potentially be reserved for Clubs like Liverpool, Real Madrid etc which would mean if they were to not qualify for UCL they would still get a place, which I think is unfair

I saw only one second, and I know that this will be great video!

Thanks for the video

OMG this is gonna be massive

I am Dutch and an Ajax fan and it would really help us in finally get the connection with the best teams of Europe. Now we can do that in some years but in other years all the talents left and it is isn’t possible. But I find it really difficult if I want it or not. I hope there is another way to get close to the level of the best clubs of Europe, but if there isn’t this definitely should be an option.

I think it would be a great idea, and it could lead to ideas such as a Scandinavian league for example which I also think would be great

As a belgian and Anderlecht fan it will also be exciting to see a rivalry between the Dutch and Belgian clubs. Almost feels like it could be an NBA type strucure with playoff tournament brackets in west and east. and maybe even a Belgian vs Dutch all star game

Great video explained the situation very well. With regards to the possibility of smaller clubs missing out on the BeNeLiga revenue/exposure and playing in a less competitive Eredivisie/Pro League, a way to make this more worthwhile could be having the winners of these competitions qualifying for a European play-off (Europa Conference League) with a team in the BeNeLiga.

this would make the champions league so much better. These teams would improve vastly and improve the bottom quality of the champions league making it more interesting.

It sounds exciting but it can also lead to many other countries doing the same thing and it can become very messy.

I love the idea!

Nice mate

Very well explained, but I still think as a Belgian it is very unlikely. Too many fans are against it and there would be protests to cancel it if it went through. I’m a Club Brugge fan and I would like it a lot because Club Brugge and Ajax are both teams that are miles ahead of other teams in financial terms, so it would be exciting to see them challenge for the title with teams like PSV and Genk as outsiders

I think the "small clubs suffering" argument is eased a bit by the fact pro/rel will still exist. Maybe in a few years, we'll start seeing a well managed "moneyball" KV Mechelen, who do have some interesting history, challenging for the title something like Leicester City in England. It would be cool to see which teams see the positives and take full advantage of the change

I think an interesting way to decide the first division of the BeNeLiga would be to have every team play home and away against every team from the other country. For example, Ajax play home and away against all clubs in the Belgian first divison; and Brugge play home and away against all clubs in the Eredivise. This would be how you determine the first table for the debut BeNeLiga season. Also keep the Domestic cups for tradition.

Great video

I like how only 2 years later the Eredivisie and Pro League have both overtaken Ligue 1

This is an interesting idea. It would probably be the only league of this type as, besides the Baltics, I don't see any cross-border league possible. It might favor the best clubs but it would give better stability to weaker clubs.

On FIFA 2020 I literally made this league and I’m already having fun with the league and Im playing as Ajax through the whole game

This can be a league with really good potential. There are many good teams from the Netherlands and Belgium. It will definitely be a top 5 league imo

The only thing I’m scared of is the addition of youth. Meaning every game will be important both Belgium & Netherlands will not include as many youngesters because of how important most games are

I actually support this, it would make the league more competitive and the clubs more dangerous in Europe, Balkan league would also become one of the strongest leagues

keep it up man

As a Anderlecht supporter I can't wait for the BeNeliga to happen. I know it would suck for the smaller teams but if I'm honest the teams in the 2nd BeNeliga would also profit from this financially over time (due to promotion, higher transfer fees,etc...). As for derbies it wouldn't really matter in my opinion. The famous ones are between big clubs anyway, ofcourse there is the Bruges derbie between Club Brugge and Cercle Brugge but it's not like that matters because Cercle hasn't won it since 2013. So yeah bring it on!

Well in alot of businesses they treat "Benelux" as one country which is Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Uefa have said they wouldn't make any exceptions for the european tickets so therefore they woud get the same amount of tickets that any other league in 6th or 7th place on the uefa coëfficiënt list would get.

The BeNeliga sounds like an amazing concept. I hope the execution is as exciting, and doesn't lead to bigger disparities in football. I think the Dutch and Belgian leagues should combine on every front, not just the top divisions, but also the minor leagues in each country. Like how the FA league structure is an incorporation of English and Welsh teams. I also think that this would be a good idea to incorporate with other countries that are neighbours, such as the Scottish league system and the Irish (Northern Irish included) football league becoming one league system.

Really good video Fiago. Thanks to you I understand the idea of the Beneliga very well. Thank you. But imo you forgot to mention one important aspect: Which effects would the BeNeliga have on the other european leagues? Because of the creation of the BeNeliga all leagues who are behind the Pro League right now would move up one rank in the UEFA ranking. So they would actually also benefit from the BeNeliga. Escpecially the leagues, which are in 11th and 16th place in the UEFA ranking (in this case the Scottish and Serbian league). Because of that the two leagues would gain more international spots and in this example the Scottish champion would even gain a safe spot in the group stage of the Champions League. On the other hand one league would suffer from the BeNeliga at this point: The Portugese Liga NOS. If the BeNeliga would overtake the Liga NOS in the UEFA ranking, the Liga NOS would drop back to the 7th place and lose at least one safe spot for the Champions and Europa League. So you can see that the BeNeliga has also its pros and cons for the other european leagues as well.

How about a UCL style Benecup? You could still keep the national leagues and even the national cups

Yknow this could also just be achieved by dismantling Belgium as a country and reuniting it with the Netherlands/dividing it along Flemish and French lines. That way you get a larger and stronger eredivisie and a few good additions to the ligue 1 (standard liege, Charleroi Ghent etc...) but more so you get an insanely competitive Dutch national football team and the French get something out of it as well, making European international football more exciting

Also interesting to note is that there used to be a women's BeNeLiga (2012-2015), but this was relatively unsuccesful due to the gap in quality between Dutch and Belgian teams and low attendance. Also such a combined league exists in other sports, such as handball.

As a Genk and AZ fan, this league would be sick

Eredivisie is 7th with the win of ajax last week they passed russia

Couple thoughts that might help win FIFA/UEFA approval: 1.) Maintain full promotion/relegation, something a closed European Super League would NOT have; 2.) Reserve national cup winner qualification for the new UEFA Conference League, thus providing an avenue for lower league Dutch and Belgian clubs to still pull off a magical run to a cup title and European competition. If not, then they still have pro/rel via #1 above; 3.) The precedent for domestic cup winner but NOT league has already been set with Luxembourg, where most of the clubs play in the lower levels of the Swiss leagues, but have a domestic cup winner qualification for UEFA Conference League; 4.) Pro/rel could be handled a couple of ways, either to maintain the 10-8 balance (unlikely!!) or to focus on the worst teams, regardless of origin. I would love to see automatic relegation for the bottom 2 clubs, regardless of country, plus a playoff involving the 3rd worst team and the next best teams from the two national leagues. An example, let's say the bottom two teams are both Belgian one year, they get relegated and replaced with the top two Belgian clubs and the top Dutch team, plus third place Belgian club, would play-off with whomever places 16th in the Beneliga, regardless of what country that club is from. If it's a Dutch team but the third place Belgian club beats both of the Dutch teams, then 3 Belgian clubs would be added, to replace 2 Belgian and 1 Dutch club, thus making the Beneliga 9-9; 5.) If 10-8 parity is to be maintained, pro/rel could see the lowest placed Dutch and Belgian clubs auto relegated, even if one of them was as high as mid-table (10th to 13th) in the Beneliga. That would be crazy and cause some really different drama from how normal pro/rel drama unfolds.

As long as there’s promotion and relegation such that every team in both countries could in theory play in the BeNeLiga - which, to my understanding, is part of the plan - then this is an excellent idea. I support this

The pros are much stronger than the cons in this case. BeNeLiga must begin as soon as possible.

I would love to see a beneliga, it will be great for teams like ajax, club Brugge and psv to grow financially and in popularity!

Never knew you have you tube channel i read your opinions they sre pretty good❤

One thing that I very much like about the idea is this. The Beneliga is going to make a ton of money, and smaller clubs will not like being on the outside looking in. That means the Beneliga- if and when it and the lower league are formed- will need to structure a profit sharing agreement that works well for the second tier from day one. I would not be at all surprised if this leads to quick growth in a third tier involving teams that are not yet fully professional- the opportunity is going to be right there, and this second tier could be in position to rival the English Championship in both quality and financial performance. I'm also very interested in just how strong this league can be from top to bottom.

Shouldn't they just add Luxembourg teams while they're at it? I know there's not many big clubs but they might as well add them seeing as BeNeLux is combined in a lot of other places

i really like the idea. but i dont like the limit on clubs per nation, i think the best clubs should be promoted and the worst should be relegated regardless of their nation.

legend

Good video you explained it amazing. There are 2 points tho that you didnt mention. I support a small team and this league would mean that we stay behind in the eredivisie ( what they plan to do if it happens) We could finally play for the top places with clubs like Ajax and psv gone and the other point is we regularly fight against relegating to the second Dutch league (De keuken kampioen divisie). If this would happen is the eredivisie way more sportive and financial interesting then what the second league is now. So me as a fan of a small club even with the negative side effects would still be interesting in this new league for ourself and Dutch football in general. This of course no hate just my opinion You definitely earned my subscription Some ❤️ from the 🇳🇱

The eredivisie is 7th now cause Ajax beated Young Boys Btw great video

What about a Nordic liga then? Sweden, Norway and Denmark?

Personally i'm against things like this happening because i think each country must have it's own national league, except in the cases where the countries are too small, like for exemple, Monaco or Liechtenstein. But if something like this happens we could also expect the creation of the Iberian League (which has been discussed between the portuguese and spanish federations in the past years, you can google it). This league would, of course, be played between the top teams of Portugal and Spain, SL Benfica, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, FC Porto, Atletico Madrid, Sporting CP, Valencia CF, Sevilla, SC Braga, Vitória de Guimarães, Boavista, Villarreal, Athletic Bilbao, Belenenses, Betis, Real Sociedad etc

Theoretically easy solutions to some of the problems posed. European Cup Competitions: that would be the sacrifice they would need make as a tradeoff. The league would be treated as solely 1 country, and its entry quotas would be reduced to match with other sizable / quality leagues. Pro/Reg: With the creation of the BeNeliga 1 would be the BeNeliga 2: A mixture of clubs from both countries in both leagues. The next step would be do the lower level clubs consider combining to create a BeNeliga 3, or does the 2nd tier clubs in each country effectively become the 3rd tier and act as a regional league (with the regions being Belgium and the Netherlands) similar to how the 4th tier in Germany is or the Conference League in England works. Each league winner would be guaranteed promotion into the BeNeliga 2, with the next 2 in each going into a promotion playoff for the final 3rd spot. There is probably a bit more complexity than that but on the surface, that's doable, or at least a good starting point to work out from. The trick then becomes, how do you work it if the 3 clubs being relegated are all say Belgian clubs while only 1 Belgian club wins promotion in the BeNeliga 2. You then end up with a situation where the 'regional league' has more clubs that it did the year before. Domestic Cups: No reason these would have to change or be eliminated. Clubs within the BeNeliga could continue to compete for their own national cups; cup ties could be scheduled for both on the same weekends to avoid massive rescheduling issues. European Cup entry quotas would need to consider this as well, but it would be similar to the England model, where they have 2 domestic cups (the FA and the League Cup, both with a Europa qualification), so a Belgian AND a Dutch team could finish outside of the top of the BeNeliga table, but backdoor their way into Europa by winning the domestic cup.

If they remove some Europe spots from Beneliga they could add it to under 15th leagues (Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Israel, Switzerland, etc.)

I think Dutch clubs deserve to be part of a big league again since the Netherlands are the 5th country with the most UCL titles

I'd love a similar video about a all Ireland league which has been actively talked about or Baltic league (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia). These would go from semi pro leagues to full time league's.

My dream is to have more leagues being able to compete with the top 5 leagues in Europe. The beneliga would definitely have a great chance to break into the top 5 leagues or even create a 'top 6'. I would also love to see other leagues competing with the biggest ones, such as the Russian and Turkish leagues. In my opinion this would make the European trophies more exciting, and it could help build some of these countries' national team and all round footballing facilities

11:18 How many people go to away games in France and Italy though? Especially when it's for example Lille versus Marseille, Bordeaux against Metz, Udinese versus Catania, or Juventus against Bari?

Make video about yugoslavia league

Very good video

I think for smaller clubs, it’s not like they can’t get promoted, the potential of getting promotion into such a marketable league is something they should consider

HEYYYYY FIAGOOOO Wrote you a mail, you didn't respond. Have some really great ideas for you, you didn't respond on IG either. :( Could you make videos and posts on unheard stories and tales of football, like the miraculous AFC Asian Cup win of Iraq or the story about Zambian legend Kalusha Bwalya? Unknown stories need to be told, and you're the best man for it! Cheers! :)

Nice vid, but the idea is coming form Marco van Basten he is talking about this idea for decades

It would mark the end of Derby's to create new Derby's. Hard pill to swallow but one thing is for sure, The "in my time our derby was vs FC Twente/Cercle Brugge" gonna be used by this generation when it's old enough.

-combine the leagues but with 20 teams -keep the national cups seperate and make an additional final of the winners -keep the 2nd leagues of each nation seperate, but give them a part of the profit that the new 1st league will generate

They could do this with several other leagues in eastern Europe

I've been saying this for years, I'm glad it's finally starting to become likely

This is great I feel like the BeNeliga could potentially jump from 8th place to 5 the place right behind 1. Premier league 2. BundesLiga 3. Serie A 4. La Liga 5. Beneliga I feel like the BeneLiga could be ahead of the french, Portuguese and Russian league. Just my opinion

As a Dutch i think i would be great having mixed cups because if you end with a Belgium team and a Dutch team the stakes are so much higher and more people are going to watch it, also the 2nd division will get some relevance because bigger teams are in it.

Next season France & Portugal come 6 coefficient points closer..... France could become the 6th league