The List of the Best Football Leagues in the World currently – What is your favorite football league? Why is that your favorite? Do you watch the league because you support a particular team? Do you watch the league because you love a particular player? Do you watch the League because that is what is available on television?

That is no mistake: football leagues are so organized and marketed so as to have teams close to our hearts, players we adore, and television deals that make them accessible to billions of people everywhere, even in the remote corners of the World.

A good League should produce exciting football, make a ton of money, produce young talents, have a religious following, and attract the best talents from all over the world. It would be good to do well in International Club Competitions as well, which would add a new dimension of Authority to the League.

So, who does this best? What is the best league in the World, and who follows next? In this post, we rank the Top Football Leagues in the World FIFA ranking, also some of the most-watched.

Top 10 Best Football Leagues in the World

  • 1. The English Premier League {EPL} – England

The Premier League — also known as Premiership — is a professional association football league. It’s England’s top football championship and is contested by 20 clubs — including those from Wales that compete in the English football league system.
Its origins go back to 1888 when it was founded as the Football League.

On February 20, 1992, it was reformed as the FA Premier League following an agreement of the First Division clubs to take advantage of a millionaire TV broadcasting deal. This deal provides funds to all clubs in the Premier League, no matter how big or small.
The English Premier League (EPL) is the most-watched sports competition in the world with a potential television and live stream audience of 4.7 billion people. That is the power of Money.

Historical clubs like Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, and Everton with several English League titles won, bring the world’s attention to the EPL.

Currently the most competitive league in the world

New clubs are growing bigger, becoming more important — much due to their new billionaire owners — and winning championship titles more often in recent years like Chelsea FC and Manchester City. In the 2016/2017 season, unknown club Leicester City won the English Premier League in what has been described as the greatest sporting shock ever, considering that at the start of the season they were favourites to face relegation.

La Liga

  • 2. La Liga – The Spanish League – Spain

The Primera División (more widely known as La Liga), which is run by the LFP (Liga de Fútbol Profesional), is the main professional football club competition in Spain. This championship is contested by 20 teams on a promotion and relegation system.
The Spanish association football league features the two best clubs in the world: Real Madrid and Barcelona.

This league has been described as a “two-horse race” by critics, an obvious reference to the dominance of Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Real Madrid was voted the Best Club of the 20th Century by FIFA.

But we have many other exciting teams in this league, including Atlético de Madrid, Sevilla, Valencia, Real Sociedad, and Villareal.

La Liga has plenty of awesome matches, but there’s clearly a huge gap between the top 2-3 clubs and the rest of the championship teams. Even the top-billed El Classico seems to have more monetary value than all the games in the lower half of the league put together.

This dominance and difference in squad quality only contribute to the decrease of the overall competitiveness of the Spanish domestic football league.

They say there is no money, but between the Real Madrid and Barcelona – have spent a fortune on the wage bills of Cristiano Ronaldo {former Madrid star} and Messi, money no doubt gained from Television rights they get from the League, but that huge amount that goes to the two clubs would have been better spent if distributed more equitably among all the teams in La Liga. That way, other teams would have more money to invest in quality players, thus making the league more competitive.

With the departure of Christiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid, it is interesting to see what future lies ahead for El Classico, as the “The Ronaldo vs. Messi” dispute has come to a finish.

  • 3. Bundesliga – The German League- Germany

The Bundesliga (“national league” in English) is Germany’s professional football championship. It’s contested by 18 teams on a promotion and relegation system and holds the highest average stadium attendance among all domestic football leagues.

If La Liga is a ‘two-horse race,’ the Bundesliga is a one-horse race. The Bundesliga features (at least) one of the most powerful teams globally: Bayern Munich. The Bavarian giants are, consistently, the strongest title contender in Germany and one of the most fearsome candidates to holding the UEFA Champions League trophy.

Despite not being as strong as the Bavarians, other Bundesliga title contenders are still successful clubs. Among them, we have Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04, Bayer Leverkusen, Hertha BSC, and Borussia Monchengladbach. These teams are good not only in the German league but also in Continental Competitions.

The Bundesliga features great players such as Manuel Neuer, Thomas Müller, Robert Lewandowski, Arjen Robben, Franck Ribéry, but what stands out in this league is the attendance at games.

Attendance in Bundesliga matches is as high as it gets — the German domestic championship has the highest average stadium attendance worldwide.

Most of the stadiums hold between 30,000 to 60,000 spectators with five venues holding more than sixty thousand people.

Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena (75,000 seating capacity) and Borussia Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park –- the well-known Westfalenstadion — (81,000 seating capacity) are Bundesliga’s biggest.

  • 4. Serie A – The Italian League – Italy

The Italian League, also known as Serie A is one of the best football leagues in the world, a professional football league in which 20 teams compete on a promotion and relation basis.

Regardless of the decrease in the purchasing power of its major clubs in the past years, Serie A — the Italian football league — remains strong and features great sides like Juventus, Napoli, Inter, AC Milan, Roma, Fiorentina, and Lazio, for example.

Italian football – a.k.a. Calcio — has always produced players of outstanding quality that have had long-lasting careers and have become legendary.

We can think of AC Milan’s lifelong captain Paolo Maldini, Juventus’ forever-young former goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon (now playing for PSG), Roma’s former striker and captain Totti, Milan’s dependable defender Paulo Maldini, to mention a few.

There is nowhere in the World where tactics are more important. Some matches are true chess games only suited for real masters of the dugout. Italian managers are famous all over the world.

  • 5. Ligue 1 – The French League – France

Ligue 1 is the top professional association league in France. It is a league in which 20 teams compete on a promotion and relegation basis. The French Ligue 1 has been a very competitive league since its inception with many different teams being able to grab the highest honors of becoming French champions.

Football stars like Neymar Jr., Mbappé, Marco Verratti, Ángel Di María, Edinson Cavani, Thiago Silva, Dani Alves, Gianluigi Buffon, Memphis Depay, Radamel Falcao, and others attract a lot of attention to the French league, but unfortunately, most of the players named above only play for one club.

PSG’s dominance in recent years (and their seemingly unlimited funds to hire the most expensive footballers) made the French championship less unpredictable.

Uncertainty about which team would be crowned champion had always been high, but when clubs like Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) or Monaco were bought by millionaires, it seems like Equal Game died in France.

  • 6. Eredivisie – Netherlands

The Dutch Eredivisie is the top League in the Netherlands, it is contested by 18 teams who may either gain promotion or face relegation.

Legendary managers and players like Rinus Michels — the inventor of “Total Football”, an impressive playing style and set of tactics that forever changed football — Johan Cruyff, Ruud Gullit, and Marco van Basten are more than enough to describe what you can expect from the Dutch domestic football league.

I recent years, it seems like Dutch clubs have only been interested in grooming youthful players and then selling them to bigger clubs with the intention of winning international laurels. With the emergence of a revitalized Ajax Amsterdam team that got to the Semifinals of the 2018/2019 Champions League, however, change may be on the horizon.

The Dutch Eredivisie remains an exciting league to watch, with attacking football, Goals harvest, and sublime skills from amazing youth footballers. There are teams with impressive historical stories such as Ajax, PSV Eindhoven, Feyenoord, AZ Alkmaar, and FC Twente in the Eredivisie.

  • 7. Primeira Liga – Portugal

The Portuguese Top League has 18 teams who gain promotion or who face relegation. The Portuguese Primeira Liga features three major clubs — known as the Big Three: SL Benfica, FC Porto, and Sporting Lisbonera who are permanently fighting for the first position. Despite the competitiveness among them, the overall squad quality is quite ordinary if we look at the rest of the first division clubs.

Most of the best products of Portugal opt to play abroad in other Leagues. Due to the Economic situation, Portugal cannot compare with the English, or Spanish in terms of signing stars, also, the TV rights deals are very small, when compared with other European leagues.

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. In order to survive, and remain competitive, Portuguese clubs have to scout diligently, so as to find young foreign players at low prices. Those footballers are then grown in the Primeira Liga and sold for impressive sums to richer teams just a few months or seasons later.

New foreign youth players reveal themselves every year in the Portuguese league bringing excitement and play quality to the matches.

As far as homegrown talent is concerned, Portugal has produced some of the best football players over the years — there’s no need to mention names like Cristiano Ronaldo, Bernardo Silva, Luís Figo, Rui Costa, Vítor Baía, or Eusébio that have amazed millions of spectators across the Globe — and the Primeira Liga was their birthplace.

Portugal is the New Italy when it comes to producing coaches. There is an array of impressive names such as José Mourinho, Mauricio Pochettino, Jorge Jesus, Leonardo Jardim, Marco Silva, Nuno Espírito Santo, and André Villas-Boas.

  • 8. Süper Lig – Turkey

The Super Lig is a Professional Football League in Turkey in which 18 teams compete on a promotion or relegation basis.
Powerful teams at the international level like Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, and Beşiktaş — together with the crazy rivalry between the three emblems from the magical city of Istanbul – draw the attention of millions of football fans to the Süper Lig.

Add that to the indescribable atmosphere in Turkish matches and the presence of many world-class footballers and you’ll have a really interesting league to follow.

Maybe that is what attracts so many foreign talents to Turkey, as they continue to troop into the Super Lig, either to regain their form or play out their careers.

  • 9. Brasileirão – Brazil

Brazil has always been one of the most dominant forces when it comes to football. Its national team is the most successful squad at FIFA World Cup tournaments and the only one to have won 5 World Cup titles.

Recent venues built for the 2014 World Cup dramatically improved the quality of the games both for spectators and players.

This is the home of Jogo Bonito which translates to Good Football, and as such, you can expect to see awesome skills and great goals being displayed on a weekly basis.

The League is not very tactical, however, since there are a lot of games to be played (across many different competitions), Brazilian teams don’t have enough time for proper training and to improve their overall game tactics. They depend mostly on the creative talents of one or two outstanding players to see them through.

Players in Brasilerao do not seem interested in playing in the local league for very long- as soon as the crowds start to chant their names in the stands they get on the next available flight to Europe. That has not helped the quality of play in Brasileirao.

  • 10. Primera División- Argentina

Just like Brazil, Argentina’s national football team is also one of the most dominant forces, as far as the History of Football is concerned.

Logically it follows that the Argentinian domestic league should produce a good number of promising stars and legendary footballers. Well, it does not disappoint in this regard. Diego Maradona, Gabriel Batistuta, Di Stéfano, Kun Agüero, Di María and, Lionel Messi are poster boys of Argentine football.

Boca Juniors and River Plate are in an eternal duel for superiority, and this rivalry brings a lot of excitement to the championship making it even more interesting.

Let’s not forget other great sides like Velez Sarsfield, Lánus, Estudiantes, Racing Club, Banfield, Independiente, San Lorenzo, and Newell’s Old Boys.

This is one of the tensest and among the top Football Leagues in the World, and attending a live Primera División match has been described as a dangerous pastime – One wonders how prepared the League authorities are in case of medical emergencies arising from hearty attacks in the stadium.

That’s all about the top 10 best Football leagues in the world 2020.

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Article filed by @ikepius.

Tags: List of Football Leagues in the World, FIFA League Rankings, World Soccer League

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