MERCENARIES CUT TIES WITH ELF, JOIN FORCES WITH BASEL

Following their decision to quit the ailing European League of Football, the Helvetic Mercenaries have entered into a strategic partnership with top Swiss club Basel Gladiators.

The move, which comes in the wake of ongoing fragmentation of the pan-European scene, is, according to the Mercenaries, a ‘clear sign of mutual confidence in the long-term potential of American football in Switzerland with international aspirations’.

The Gladiators — a long-standing club and last year’s national runners-up — will benefit from the commercial, organisational and structural support of the Helvetic Mercenaries operation, particularly in the areas of game-day organization, marketing and structural development. The stated goal is to further advance both organisations athletically and organisationally and, to this end, existing structures will be merged and specifically optimised. The Mercenaries website has already taken on the purple hue of its collaborator.

A key component of the partnership will be the sustainable development of young talent in Switzerland. The Mercenaries organisation, and especially its Academy set-up, note the responsibility to actively contribute to strengthening the next generation of Swiss football players.

“We are very much looking forward to working together,” the Gladiators head coach said in a statement. “From the beginning, we had a good feeling and see the opportunity to develop further together and to be present on the European stage in the future. With this step, we will once again challenge for the national title, and moreover, it is now possible for us to strive for our first European title in the CEFL.”

In the coming days, the next steps for the operational coordination of the cooperation will be further defined, with both clubs already focused on the start of the Swiss national season at the end of March.

The announcement of its partnership with Basel came just days after the Mercenaries admitted that its patience and loyalty to the ELF had reached an end. An initial statement declaring that the team was ‘closely following the current developments and public speculation surrounding the European League of Football’ was quickly followed by another which, insisting that its decision did not spell the end of the club, confirmed that it would no longer waste time on a league that appeared to have no future following the exit of six European Football Alliance operations.

Noting that the preseason for any continental competition would have to begin in approximately eight weeks, and confirming that there was still no binding schedule, the Mercenaries concluded that ‘under these circumstances, professional work is not possible’, citing issues such as employment contracts, visas and security planning for players, staff and partners could not be responsibly addressed.

“Since the founding of the Helvetic Mercenaries, this project has been driven by passion, trust and the vision of developing American football sustainably in Europe,” the team missive explained. “Our goal has always been more than just sporting success: We wanted to build something lasting — for the sport, our community, and future generations.

“Currently, however, key framework conditions such as transparency, reliability and planning security are lacking. These are essential to fulfilling our obligations. Against this backdrop, we have reassessed our sporting and operational direction [and], after intensive review, we have determined that participation in the 2026 European League of Football is not possible under the current circumstances. This decision was not easy for us, but it is necessary to act responsibly and sustainably.

“The Helvetic Mercenaries will continue to exist as an organisation. We will field a team and offer attractive football in 2026 as well. For several weeks now, we have been working on alternative, viable models to provide Swiss football, and especially young players, with a reliable future. We will provide timely and transparent updates regarding the next steps.”

The team has confirmed that any tickets already purchased for the ELF campaign — a process widely derided by observers as somewhat premature — will be fully refunded.