Rugbymania blog: 2012

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

From 20 leagues down to 8

From the very start of RM the huge difference between number of teams per league has been a problem in the game. The now defunct North Europe league had, for many seasons, less than 40 active teams, while France had over 2000. In one case a team only needed 2 seasons or so to reach the Top 10 in their nation, while it was a goal that could take a dozen seasons or more to reach in the another country. Managers starting up a team in a nation like New Zealand would quickly be making much more cash each month compared to another team created the same day in France or Italy ....

Until very recently we had 21 leagues left, until I combined Scotland and Ireland, making it 20 leagues left as I write.

Instead of continuing joining leagues step by step, making people unhappy season after season, I prefer, once for all, to make things happen and be done with it.

The idea is to reduce the number of leagues down to 8 at the end of the current season, according to the size, the timezone, the language and the geography of each country.

The proposal is as follows:

League 1: Argentina, North and South America (except Brasil) => 354 active teams

League 2: Australia, N Zealand and South Africa => 278 active teams

League 3: UK and Ireland => 364 active teams

League 4: France => 1445 active teams

League 5: Italy => 1124 active teams

League 6: Romania and Moldavia => 354 active teams

League 7: Brasil, Portugal, Andorra and Spain => 384 active teams

League 8: Northern and Southern Europe, Hungary, Switzerland and Austria: 425 teams.

This will mean a big re-organisation in most of the leagues at the end of the current season (season 20). A team finishing 4th in division 3 will maybe save its spot in division 3 while the team finishing 5th will be demoted ... we can't know for sure who is going to be demoted as we don't know which and how many teams will still be active at the end of the season, but just keep in mind an easy rule: Each point you're going to earn this season may have big consequences for the division you'll be placed into the next season.