OPINION: EUROPEAN REUNION MISSING BIGGEST NAMES
The welcome rejoining of the European League of Football and European Football Alliance may have brought a modicum of sanity to the continent’s professional level, but all is not quite as it may seem.
The joint statement issued by both parties on Wednesday (26th November) spoke warmly of a ‘strategic cooperation agreement’, effective immediately, designed to create a ‘transparent, team-led governance model designed to reinforce stability, consistency and long-term growth throughout the sport’. What it failed to include, however, was a list of the teams now reunited under the ELF umbrella.
It was notable that, when additions to the EFA roster were announced for London and Milan last month, multiple teams did not republish the news on their social media feeds, leading to confirmation of a split in the ranks caused by differing opinions on how any new league should be funded. Now, this week’s ‘kiss and make up’ announcement has attracted the same level of suspicion, amid speculation that some teams are still holding out for a breakaway league in 2026.
Sources suggest that Vienna and Munich, two of the four ELF semi-finalists from last year, haven’t come in from the cold, and neither have the Rhein Fire, possibly the best team in the history of the league. With Stuttgart out of the picture following their decision to file for insolvency, it means that four of Europe’s top teams are currently absent from the ‘new’ ELF.
Moreover, the absent quartet is understood to believe that the ambition of forming a rival league to the ELF remains viable, with rumours that it has new teams lined up in London, Paris, Monaco and Switzerland. While the Swiss rumour could be seen as credible following the creation of the Alpine Rams — who had not pledged allegiance to either the ELF or EFA — the idea of teams coming from Paris and London seems faintly ridiculous given both cities now have ties to the ELF via the Musketeers — whose CEO, John McKeon, was one of the few to offer a quote on the reunion — and the new franchise assigned to media mogul David Gandler.
According to our sources, the holdout appears predicated as much on personal animosities as the desire to start over, with the breakdown in relationships with ELF co-founder Zeljko Karajica at the heart of the situation. This stumbling block remains despite Karajica effectively removing himself from power at the end of the 2025 ELF campaign as an olive branch in the early days of the EFA breakaway. The personal motives are not thought to apply to all four teams, and it seems odd that Rhein would have looked to move on given that leaving the ELF appeared to require a name change, while allowing the ‘old’ league to potentially start a new Rhein Fire as they hold the licensing rights to the former NFL Europe nicknames. That possibility was removed almost as soon as the first draft of this piece was completed, with the NFL apparently assigning the rights to use the Fire nickname to Rhein’s parent company…
Most of those involved in the EFA breakaway wanted to reform as a protest against Karajica, to force the ELF into offering a better deal. Now they’ve got that, they’ve realised that the best option — not only for themselves, but for the sport as a whole — is to rejoin the ELF. With a little over five months remaining to the traditional start date for European competition, time is fast running out for any new entity to get up-and-running, especially with only a handful of teams. It was just this situation that forced Stuttgart’s hand, even on the eve of the reunification, when it could not guarantee a 2026 season to investors. As the Surge were aligned with the group that is resisting a reunion, it is likely that they would still have been on the outside looking in, hoping that a new league comes around. The ELF benefits from five years of work that’s been put into building and marketing, and now appears to have agreed to the reforms that the majority had pushed for, so, at what point do the other outliers realise that they may have to bite the bullet and go back to the ELF or not play at all next season?
With Vienna, Rhein, Berlin and Munich not yet realigned, Wroclaw unconfirmed and the Alpine Rams as a wild card, there is clearly much still to be sorted before the European scene takes shape.
Raiders Tirol were the only team to publicly declare that they were staying with the ELF, jumping back from the EFA to honour their contract with the existing league, but the Hamburg Sea Devils, owned by Karajica, were naturally assumed to be staying put. Of the 2025 ELF teams not accounted for by either the ELF or EFA this week, Stuttgart have filed for bankruptcy, the Fehervar Enthroners have pledged themselves to the Austrian national league and the Cologne Centurions are reported missing/possibly killed in action.
Wednesday’s reunification announcement is expected to see Paris, Prague, Nordic, Frankfurt, Madrid and the recently-unveiled additions from London and Milan alongside the ELF remainers. If all of the viable names listed sign up, the ELF could have a 16-team future but, as the past couple of months have shown, it would be unwise to discount further developments in the weeks ahead.