The future of Swiss football will be decided on Friday. The clubs will vote on increasing the Super League to 12 clubs as well as on the introduction of playoffs at the extraordinary general meeting of the Swiss Football League.
Since the Swiss Football League presented its reform project for the Super League at the beginning of May, discussions have been lively throughout the country. Fans are against it, and the clubs themselves are far from all enthusiastic about how the SFL bosses view the Championship from the 2023/24 season.
The Super League would no longer have 10 but 12 teams and, after 22 matches in the preliminary phase, the teams would be divided into 2 groups: the first 6 would compete for the title in the “Championship Group”, and the last 6 would fight for maintenance in the Qualification Group. A situation similar to that of the old LNA until the reform of 2003 and the creation of the Super League, with a final round and a round of relegation.
Controversial playoffs
If the reform were limited to that, the opposition would undoubtedly be less strong. But what bothers many football fans is the third phase which would be played after 32 matches of necessarily less interest: the champion and the participants in the European Cup would be designated according to the playoff system, with home/away matches.
With such a scenario, the team ranked second in the “Championship Group” could therefore be crowned champion at the end of the “Championship Finals”. And this even if it was significantly behind the leader, who would have been titled a long time ago according to the current formula.
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