EFA TARGETS 10-12 TEAM ‘BREAKAWAY’ FOR 2026
The European professional football scene could be split in two as early as next season after the European Football Alliance said it would push ahead with plans for a rival to the incumbent European League of Football.
The claim follows the failure of a ‘recent mediation call’ between new ELF CEO Ingo Schiller — who was only installed in the role last week — and representatives of the breakaway teams’ union, brokered by outgoing ELF commissioner and co-founder Patrick Esume.
According to a report on American Football International, the website coincidentally founded by current Paris Musketeers CEO John McKeon, the talks ‘failed to bridge divisions’ between the two entities, prompting the EFA to step up their plans for an alternative competition. Formed by eight of the 16 ELF franchises, and later joined by Nordic Storm, the EFA has spoken of its concerns regarding a lack of transparency within the ELF organisation and an increasing disparity between teams on the field. The AFI story claims that ‘EFA members criticised the ELF’s ‘unattractive structures’ and misaligned leadership’ — something its own members apparently intend to finalise at a forthcoming meeting in Frankfurt. Confusingly, the report also says that Schiller, who has pledged to make ELF stability his priority, ‘has yet to engage the EFA’.
With nine teams already onboard, AFI goes on to reveal that the EFA league would start with 10–12 teams, adding non-ELF clubs to make up the difference between its current membership and the desired total. It is interesting to note that 2025 ELF powerhouses Munich and Stuttgart have yet to commit to the EFA, with the latter having already called for calm heads in an increasingly frenzied situation. The EFA has yet to comment on any planned additions, maybe waiting to see on which side the two German clubs decide to fall, as well as considering the validity of potential newcomers. What it has insisted, however, is that its governance will be more like that of the NFL, which prioritises ‘shared revenue and transparency’.
The ELF may yet have a trump card to play, however, given that it holds a long-term television streaming deal with DAZN, which provides live coverage of all games, as well as existing TV deals around the globe and a bevy of brand name sponsors. Outside of the nine ‘rebels’ plus Stuttgart and Munich, the ELF could be left to count on winless Cologne and Helvetic, one-win Fehérvár and the ailing franchises in Berlin and Hamburg — the last of which is 91 per cent owned by outgoing league CEO and co-founder Zeljko Karajica. If it decides to go head-to-head with a breakaway EFA setup, any clubs it attracts to fill the void would be thrust into the fray without sufficient time to upscale in order to compete on a professional stage, in much the same way that caught out Milan, Helvetic and Barcelona, among others, in the recent past.
The ELF did not offer a direct comment on the AFI story, but repeated its stated goal of engaging in open dialogue with the teams and working together on solutions and structures to stabilise the league and its franchises in the long term, claiming that nothing has changed in this regard.
Whatever and whoever rises from what appears likely to be the ashes of the existing professional scene in Europe, a divided continent — with two sub-standard leagues instead of one — is not the way forward.