HELVETIC REMAIN, MILANO RETURN FOR 2026 ELF?

Unsurprisingly perhaps, the rumour mill has been picking up speed ever since the European League of Football and European Football Alliance both issued statements Tuesday regarding their plans for 2026.

Both organisations — one the current organiser of the pan-continental professional league and the other a breakaway faction determined to forge a better path for the spot in Europe — claim to have 11 teams on which to build, but the smart money is on some of the same names appearing on both lists.

In the meantime, there has been much speculation regarding which teams may be amongst the 11 claimed by the ELF — the EFA has made no secret of its members — and whether these include existing, former or all-new franchises.

Speaking to Gridiron after their final game of the 2025 regular season in Prague, Helvetic Mercenaries head coach Joshua Fitzgerald intimated that the club wanted to remain in European competition, despite a tumultuous season that saw it on the wrong end of heavy defeats either side of having to concede a game as they were unable to field sufficient numbers for a trip to Copenhagen. Now, according to Blue News, amongst others, the Swiss side has said that it intends to honour its contract with the ELF — although Fitzgerald, who doubles up as GM, is expected to push for a wider ‘homegrown’ region and some sort of leniency to account for the relatively high cost of living in Switzerland.

One region that was, in limited fashion, opened up to the Mercenaries in 2025 could be closed off to the team next season with the expected return of the Milano Seamen to the ELF. Outgoing CEO Zeljko Karajica intimated as much in his response to July’s demands from the EFA, as the Italian side regathers itself after a bruising debut season in the competition, where it found life both on and off the field to be way more of a step up from the national league than expected. With the Seamen sidelined in 2025, Italian talent was to be split geographically between Switzerland and Austria, with both the Vienna Vikings and Raiders Tirol — neither of which were weak links in the ELF — gaining access to players that may have boosted Mercenaries.

Perhaps the most intriguing rumour to have emerged in the past 24 hours, however, concerns a side that has not been a part of the ELF in its first five years, but bears a name familiar to anyone who followed them in NFL Europe, where they topped opposition including ELF champions Rhein Fire and Frankfurt Galaxy.

According to Flashscore USA, again amongst others, the Amsterdam Admirals — frequently listed alongside a potential London franchise as an ELF expansion team — have aligned themselves with the EFA, albeit as a ‘non-active’ member. This, so the report claims, follows a breakdown in talks with the ELF.

Should these rumours be true, they are sure to be joined by speculation about that potential London franchise, with fans across the ELF surprised that the British capital has not been included in the league’s plans across its first five seasons. The key figure here could be recent ELF investor David Gandler, who purchased Leyton Orient FC at the end of the 2024-25 English soccer season, amid claims that he wanted to rehome them in a multisports arena that would include provision for a UK-based ELF franchise. Gridiron has tried to contact Gandler for confirmation of his allegiance following the ELF-EFA split, but has yet to receive a response.

Finally, the Cologne Centurions — thought by many to be the most ‘dead and buried’ ELF franchise of all — is still alive and kicking, on the social media front at least….