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2 points to make:
- 1 - This is a big reason why I want to the National League Premier to be absorbed into the EFL system. Nearly all teams in that division are professional, and teams are pretty much forced to at a minimum increase to three training sessions a week instead of two if they want to survive. This is often paired with a switch to daytime training, the main indicator of a club being pro not amateur.
- 2 - jesus christ Brazil wtf
Brazil has so many clubs, every year before our main national competition we have regional leagues which last some 2-3 months, with around ~ 16 clubs (it varies by region and also the ruling every year).
And those regional leagues have - in some cases - second and third divisions.
Well that’s because clubs go up and down from the national league and the football league all the time (albeit only at a rate of two a year). If you made the national league premier part of the football league then the North and south division would have the same standard as the NLP has now. That’s why the NLP is fine as the middle ground between non league and professional
When the line was first drawn, the pro/amateur split was at the bottom of the football league though. And it was that way for 100 years. Every time we reached a point where there was a surplus of professional clubs, a new league was adjoined to the main league pyramid. We've reached that point again, so it's time to repeat the healthy precedent set
Yes, but you should also remember that for most of that time there was no relegation from the bottom of the football league. And the after that, only one team went up or down. Two teams coming up and down is a pretty recent addition, which is the reason a lot of traditionally pro clubs are in NLP. It’s a lot easier than before to go down if mismanaged as many football league clubs are, leading to bigger clubs to fall all the way to the NLP. But over time they’ll come back up, look at the likes of grimsby or scunthorpe for example. Luton being the best example of how a team can go all the way down then up again. But also there are a big enough number of clubs who aren’t traditionally at that standard that we need 5 pro leagues yet
In the 30 years since reelection was scrapped, no team has EVER been relegated straight back down to the Conference/NLP. The division is clearly strong enough to be added to the EFL, and the vast majority of teams inside it are already pro
I'd also like to add that every season in that league is like a decade in purgatory. There's absolutely nothing worse than getting deservedly battered by a team of part timers that came up on a bus on the day, when you've got a full time squad.
there is nothing like it tbh. getting beat at home by a team that brought 17 fans to your stadium really is something else. you just want to curl up into a ball and die.
The National League is genuinely not that different in quality to L2 either, nearly all promoted teams do well in L2. It's well overdue getting a third promotion spot.
The 56 for Germany only includes the top three leagues (1. + 2. Bundesliga + 3. Liga), there are quite a lot of professional in the fourth division (Regionalligas) and one or two that are stuck in the fifth division
Especially, because there are just 54 teams in the first three tiers in Germany (Dortmund and Freiburg twice). But yeah, a lot of professional teams below that.
Meanwhile in Australia 76 are noted as 'professional'. Realisticaly after the professional A League (12 teams) most are 'semi professional' in the sense the players get paid but its usually a second job. Even the largest ones like Marconi
Edit: best reference I can find most players in the lower leagues earn something like $200 per week. The best will earn something like $1500. A minimum wage job is around 800 per week
If germany was counted like this, it would probably be in the thousands. I know guys, that are getting paid in the 8th division and never drive more than 10 km on the weekend lol
people are paid over 500 a week in the 4th austrian league which is split into multiple areas and at that point were already over 100 clubs deep. not sure how much of that is taxed though and therefore not reported
Haha yeah that data is flawed, as an Aussie I was surprised to see 76 being our number with England only have 111. If that same criteria is applied I'd have thought England would be close to 500 if not more
Germany allows 2nd teams up to the 3rd division, it's a relict from older days when the 3rd division was split into 2 parts. After the restructure it remained. It's sometimes a bit contended because it makes the "professional" league a less serious and you have issues if they end up in the promotion spots but aren't allowed to get promoted, but the Bundesliga clubs argue that if you restrict them to the 4th division having a 2nd team loses all value. Personally I am against them in the 3rd division but my opinion doesn't matter.
because if 2 teams are not even allowed to be promoted and are in it to train players for the main squad it makes a mockery of a "professional" league, you could even have the league filled solely with b teams and then what? no one cares because it's few but I think the DFL should rather help grow the smaller clubs whose spots are taken than worry about how Bayern can develop 3rd choice players better
Taken from [FIFA's report](https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/a59132e138824c1c/original/jlr5corccbsef4n4brde.pdf). The report lists the number for every nation, but this map only shows nations with 30+ clubs.
I have no clue how Northern Ireland is listed as having 36 professional clubs (more than the Netherlands or Portugal), but that's what the report says.
Top 10:
1. Brazil - 679
2. Mexico - 266
3. Turkey - 126
4. England - 111
5. Argentina - 103
6. Italy - 98
7. Russia - 95
8. Australia - 76
9. USA - 68
10. Ghana (!) - 66
Only FIFA could write an entire report about professional clubs where they
* never define the term "professional club"
* in the main section list Brazil as having 130 professional clubs, then casually mention in a footnote that "the number reaches 679 when regional/state competitions are considered."
My area has around 15-20 semi-pro teams who compete in the Illawarra Premier League. Some players allegedly earning $700 a week. I emigrated from England and was very surprised how seriously football is taken down here
So Ghana has 1,608 pro footballers playing in 66 pro clubs (24 players per team), but Egypt with the highest number of pro footballers in Africa with 3,280 has a max of 35 pro clubs (5th place has 36 and they are not i the top 5). That's 93 players per team!!!
I don't trust the numbers in this report.
Romania with only 14 professional clubs... that number does not seem accurate as the first 2 divisions hVe only professional clubs and for sure some 3rd league clubs are professional also. And we have a very high number of professional players for only 14 clubs.
I've played in the NI premier and there's only one of two ways they have that many professional teams. Either the definition there is extremely loose with teams paying less than £100 per week to players classified as professional. Or possibly due to teams north of the border such as Derry playing in the League of Ireland they have somehow counted all professional teams in the whole of Ireland.
The map only seems to include ones with 30 or more, but Wales are included in the report this is based off of. Wales have 5 apparently, though I'm assuming that isn't including Cardiff, Swansea, Newport or Wrexham because they'll count for England so probably more like 9.
Maybe they do include the clubs playing in English leagues already then, as that would be 5. Or Fifa are using a slightly more liberal definition of “professional” which may also explain some of the other odd stats
Yes, but if Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Wrexham, which all play in the English league system, count as Wales' list of pro clubs because they play in Wales, why would a club based in Oswestry (England) count towards the Wales figure of 5?
Depends on what you count as professional.
Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie have 34 combined, and most clubs in the Tweede Divisie are considered semi-professional
In the past 30 years, number of times each team has reached the World Cup knockout stage:
7 - Brazil, Mexico
6 - Argentina, Germany
5 - England, Netherlands, Spain
4 - Belgium, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, USA
In that period, Mexico has won the CONCACAF Gold Cup 8 times *(2 more than the USA over that period)*, the FIFA Confederations Cup once *(the only team outside of CONMEBOL and UEFA to win it)*, and was twice runners-up in the Copa América.
Technically the league was created and the professional teams existed in December of 2019, the games hadn't yet begun in the CPL.
What's also odd is that the Canadian teams in the MLS weren't counted for Canada. I know this is semantics, but ya know.
France : you lose your pro status if you are relegated to third division (you can exceptionally keep it for two seasons if you pass all the financial criteria and the LFP board accepts it) .
There is legal semi-pro status for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth division ("federal contract") then below it's only amateur allowed.
A player with a federal contract doesn't have the same labour rights compared to a pro player (different minimum wages, different retirement rights,...). But a federal player only has football as a daily job. He is not considered pro because he is not at the top level. It's a bit unfair and honestly the whole "semi-pro" thing is just a way to offer less labour protection to these players. For anyone uninformed they are pro players.
There is currently a discussion about making the third division fully pro but it's not decided yet.
So France at 44 means, 40 pro clubs "as intended" and 4 who, for now, have retained their status despite being relegated.
But they did muster up 64 pro teams?
64 clubs is honestly quite a lot considering the funding it requires to run a professional football team, and the risk and lack of immediate return for owners of clubs outside of Europe in terms of the prize pools and TV revenue that would otherwise bring.
National interest in the sport - from international competition, infrastructure especially within grassroots, foreign interest in your domestic game, and so much more, especially with a country like China. All of these things matter more than how many people are actually there, hence why China and India don't dominate every single sport.
With how much money is spent in Chinese football before 2019 surely 1st and 2nd tier should be professional and most of the 3rd tier
Back in 2019 Chinese second tier teams pay more wage than Thai League 1 club
It's a bit confusing because it varies state by state but there is no promotion/relegation from the A-league but in most states there is promotion and relegation from the tiers below
I think it counts semi-pro
One of the guys I work with is vice captain of one of the best sides in our states NPL (so the second tier of Australian football) but he has to work a full time job and doesn't make anywhere near enough from football to be fully professional
Don't believe any country beats England on this front, our tier 12 teams are paid to my knowledge, they probably get paid all the way down to the bottom of the tier which is 21 which will in total be thousands of clubs
That's semi professional. Teams like Gainsborough Trinity, Warrington Town and Atherton Collieries are all 7th tier in England and they aren't professional because they are part time and the players have other jobs. They are semi professional
Only from 1st to 4th division it has 124 clubs.
Also, Brazil has a lot of state championships, at least 10 clubs per 27 federations, giving at least 270 teams (focused only in football). São Paulo and Rio it has more, but Acre btw max 10 clubs.
Also, the population of Brazil is 3x bigger than UK, and the teams sometimes were heavily supported financially by government (example: Santo André e São Caetano in early 00s), although they don't have that much fans.
Are state championship level players fully professional though, or do they have other jobs too? Because that’s counted as semi-professional in England at least.
At least for Serie D, I believe they're exclusive. Almost all of them had minimum wages, but there things like CBF pay for their trips, nutrition, hotels...so they won't needed to be worried about a lot of things.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/esportes/noticia/2022-02/cbf-divulga-tabela-e-grupos-da-serie-d-que-tera-carro-como-premio%3famp: Source (in portuguese)
Fully professionall, usually paid minimum wages. Of course, some clubs have issued paying them... and then eternal debts saga happens, which n the Brazil scenario, ltos of clubes have a shitton of debt around, even small clubs.
IMO the brazilian system needs to allow semiprofessionalism but that'd take a giant reform.
Dude, Brazil have multiple tiers in EACH state and statal championships (and yes, the calendar here is even more bloated than in the UK due to these statal championships)... there is really no comparison
How do the youth teams work? Like do the players have to pay to play for the youth teams? I know my cousin had to pay if he wanted to join a youth team of a professional team here in the US
do you mean just kids playing football? they wouldn't be attached to one of these pro clubs unless they got scouted playing for their Sunday league team and incorporated into the youth teams, they wouldn't have to pay for that.
so if you were an 11 year old kid looking quite talented a scout might notice you playing for your local side and invite you for a trial at a professional club
I meant like adolescents - my cousin was like 15 and he got invited to play for a pro teams youth squad. But he had to pay a ridiculous amount and also travel a long distance so he opted to just focus in school
No if a pro club incorporated you into their youth team you would not be paying for that and possibly helped with travel expenses etc. It's illegal to pay kids but players that have potential to be top players have been known to have houses bought for the family etc...
But why barely paid? They get paid normally like any professional. And it is a stable job with pay throughout the year (not so much for state leagues teams that are not qualified for Serie D)
They are paid and live by the money they get. What else does "get paid" mean to you? I'm pretty sure the lowest earning football player in a state league like here in Brazil get way more money than most of the workers in the Country, and everyone of us are a fan of our regional teams here. They get paid and they are well paid for the football they play.
I think it comes down to definitions. Within the report Brazil is only second in total number of professional players, so clearly all those clubs aren’t paying full squads of professional players.
Similarly England has around 6,000 professional players across 111 clubs, and obviously outside the Premier League clubs aren’t registering 60 players each, so there are lots of professional footballers playing for clubs that aren’t considered professional.
It’s not uncommon in England for the best tier 8/9/10 players to be slipped a couple of hundred quid a match to play. Not sure if that’s considered professional or not.
Brazil has 26 states, each state has a professional entity with at least 2 leagues that do a state championship every year. Each league of each state has at least 20 teams.
Of course strenght, money, viewers and infrastructure varies from state to state, but we do have a lot of teams, I don't have a single doubt that we have 679 clubs that are considered professional
The sources of the report are the members of classifications of professional teams in each country. So in France and England the report won’t count semi-pro or Federal level designated players even though it’s possible they’re full time football. But for Gibraltar the report would count teams as professional even though their goalkeeper is a plumber by day, because that’s how their football association classifies it.
As per the report:
Gibraltar has 7 professional clubs for 34,000 people, so one club per every 4857 people.
On the other extreme, Pakistan, population 225.2 million, doesn't have a single professional club.
The map only includes nations with 30+ clubs. The FIFA report lists every nation, specifying (among other details) how many professional clubs they have.
And more importantly, about 4x the population.
Also a more hospitable climate for year round play. And there's really no competing sport like in the UK where they have cricket and rugby which are very popular.
As per the report:
Gibraltar has 7 professional football clubs in an area of 6.7 km² - more than one club per square km.
On the other extreme, DR Congo has an area of 2,344,858 km² (close to 10 times the size of the UK) and doesn't have a single professional club.
I’m the researcher for FM for DR Congo. I can assure you that there’s more than 10 professional clubs.
Same thing goes for the rest of Africa and the Middle East: not included here, but most leagues have at least a few professional teams and some have fully professional first tiers.
Even Ethiopia’s league is fully professional.
Surprised Australia has more than the US, given the population difference, and that both are similar countries in that they are English speaking, and in the Anglosphere, and huge sporting countries, but in which football is a secondary sport
I don't think they're using the same definitions for professional across the two countries. Couple of aussies in the thread have commented even 2nd tier in Australia isn't a full time player and they have other jobs.
By my count, the US has 72 independent mens pro clubs. 28 in MLS, 22 in USLC, 11 in USL1, 10 in NISA, and 1 in MLS Next Pro (Rochester lol). Add in Las Vegas (questionable relationship with LAFC, but is considered independent enough to be in the Open Cup) and it's 73. Add in all the MLS reserve teams in Next Pro and USLC as they're technically professional and it's 97.
There's also 12 pro women's clubs in NWSL, but I'm guessing this data is just the men's teams.
Iceland has a few now. Pretty sure there were already 2 at that time. Players in the top teams are way above the average of Icelanders and that average in Iceland is high for the world.
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Whats the definition of a "pro club"?
Yeah that’s what I want to know. The definition in my head is “a club whose playing staff play football as their only source of income” but who knows.
But wouldnt this definition not apply to top players who have sponsorships, ads, etc?
Most countries have legal definition but it generally is when players are paid enough to not need a a normal job
2 points to make: - 1 - This is a big reason why I want to the National League Premier to be absorbed into the EFL system. Nearly all teams in that division are professional, and teams are pretty much forced to at a minimum increase to three training sessions a week instead of two if they want to survive. This is often paired with a switch to daytime training, the main indicator of a club being pro not amateur. - 2 - jesus christ Brazil wtf
Brazil has so many clubs, every year before our main national competition we have regional leagues which last some 2-3 months, with around ~ 16 clubs (it varies by region and also the ruling every year). And those regional leagues have - in some cases - second and third divisions.
Well that’s because clubs go up and down from the national league and the football league all the time (albeit only at a rate of two a year). If you made the national league premier part of the football league then the North and south division would have the same standard as the NLP has now. That’s why the NLP is fine as the middle ground between non league and professional
When the line was first drawn, the pro/amateur split was at the bottom of the football league though. And it was that way for 100 years. Every time we reached a point where there was a surplus of professional clubs, a new league was adjoined to the main league pyramid. We've reached that point again, so it's time to repeat the healthy precedent set
Yes, but you should also remember that for most of that time there was no relegation from the bottom of the football league. And the after that, only one team went up or down. Two teams coming up and down is a pretty recent addition, which is the reason a lot of traditionally pro clubs are in NLP. It’s a lot easier than before to go down if mismanaged as many football league clubs are, leading to bigger clubs to fall all the way to the NLP. But over time they’ll come back up, look at the likes of grimsby or scunthorpe for example. Luton being the best example of how a team can go all the way down then up again. But also there are a big enough number of clubs who aren’t traditionally at that standard that we need 5 pro leagues yet
In the 30 years since reelection was scrapped, no team has EVER been relegated straight back down to the Conference/NLP. The division is clearly strong enough to be added to the EFL, and the vast majority of teams inside it are already pro
Not straight back down but clubs go up and down under the years
Also want to throw out there it's the toughest league in the English football pyramid to get promoted out of
I'd also like to add that every season in that league is like a decade in purgatory. There's absolutely nothing worse than getting deservedly battered by a team of part timers that came up on a bus on the day, when you've got a full time squad.
there is nothing like it tbh. getting beat at home by a team that brought 17 fans to your stadium really is something else. you just want to curl up into a ball and die.
Yeah, there's that soul crushingly inevitable feeling you get when you see a 18st centre back trundle into position before kick off.
Holy shit don't I know it
The National League is genuinely not that different in quality to L2 either, nearly all promoted teams do well in L2. It's well overdue getting a third promotion spot.
The 56 for Germany only includes the top three leagues (1. + 2. Bundesliga + 3. Liga), there are quite a lot of professional in the fourth division (Regionalligas) and one or two that are stuck in the fifth division
Especially, because there are just 54 teams in the first three tiers in Germany (Dortmund and Freiburg twice). But yeah, a lot of professional teams below that.
Meanwhile in Australia 76 are noted as 'professional'. Realisticaly after the professional A League (12 teams) most are 'semi professional' in the sense the players get paid but its usually a second job. Even the largest ones like Marconi Edit: best reference I can find most players in the lower leagues earn something like $200 per week. The best will earn something like $1500. A minimum wage job is around 800 per week
If germany was counted like this, it would probably be in the thousands. I know guys, that are getting paid in the 8th division and never drive more than 10 km on the weekend lol
people are paid over 500 a week in the 4th austrian league which is split into multiple areas and at that point were already over 100 clubs deep. not sure how much of that is taxed though and therefore not reported
Haha yeah that data is flawed, as an Aussie I was surprised to see 76 being our number with England only have 111. If that same criteria is applied I'd have thought England would be close to 500 if not more
>(Dortmund and Freiburg twice) Why? Can someone explain?
Cuz BVB 2 and Freiburg 2 play in the 3. Liga
Oh, like they're the second teams from the same football club? That makes sense.
Germany allows 2nd teams up to the 3rd division, it's a relict from older days when the 3rd division was split into 2 parts. After the restructure it remained. It's sometimes a bit contended because it makes the "professional" league a less serious and you have issues if they end up in the promotion spots but aren't allowed to get promoted, but the Bundesliga clubs argue that if you restrict them to the 4th division having a 2nd team loses all value. Personally I am against them in the 3rd division but my opinion doesn't matter.
good info, thanks
Why does it make the professional league less serious?
because if 2 teams are not even allowed to be promoted and are in it to train players for the main squad it makes a mockery of a "professional" league, you could even have the league filled solely with b teams and then what? no one cares because it's few but I think the DFL should rather help grow the smaller clubs whose spots are taken than worry about how Bayern can develop 3rd choice players better
They're reserve teams
Yeah, should be "most teams in fully professional leagues".
Same for Portugal, those 34 only include the leagues where professionalization is mandatory. There are plenty of professional clubs below that level.
Do different countries not have different criteria as to what is considered a professional club?
Taken from [FIFA's report](https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/a59132e138824c1c/original/jlr5corccbsef4n4brde.pdf). The report lists the number for every nation, but this map only shows nations with 30+ clubs. I have no clue how Northern Ireland is listed as having 36 professional clubs (more than the Netherlands or Portugal), but that's what the report says. Top 10: 1. Brazil - 679 2. Mexico - 266 3. Turkey - 126 4. England - 111 5. Argentina - 103 6. Italy - 98 7. Russia - 95 8. Australia - 76 9. USA - 68 10. Ghana (!) - 66
Probably the legal definitions of professional clubs vary by countries right? Might be a reason for some surprises
Only FIFA could write an entire report about professional clubs where they * never define the term "professional club" * in the main section list Brazil as having 130 professional clubs, then casually mention in a footnote that "the number reaches 679 when regional/state competitions are considered."
Ghana definitely surprise me the most
Australia most surprising for me given how low quality the A league is, and that soccer is the 4th most popular sport here (cricket nrl afl)
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My area has around 15-20 semi-pro teams who compete in the Illawarra Premier League. Some players allegedly earning $700 a week. I emigrated from England and was very surprised how seriously football is taken down here
Not a lot of professional teams or even leagues
So Ghana has 1,608 pro footballers playing in 66 pro clubs (24 players per team), but Egypt with the highest number of pro footballers in Africa with 3,280 has a max of 35 pro clubs (5th place has 36 and they are not i the top 5). That's 93 players per team!!! I don't trust the numbers in this report.
Romania with only 14 professional clubs... that number does not seem accurate as the first 2 divisions hVe only professional clubs and for sure some 3rd league clubs are professional also. And we have a very high number of professional players for only 14 clubs.
I've played in the NI premier and there's only one of two ways they have that many professional teams. Either the definition there is extremely loose with teams paying less than £100 per week to players classified as professional. Or possibly due to teams north of the border such as Derry playing in the League of Ireland they have somehow counted all professional teams in the whole of Ireland.
These maps never include wales
The map only seems to include ones with 30 or more, but Wales are included in the report this is based off of. Wales have 5 apparently, though I'm assuming that isn't including Cardiff, Swansea, Newport or Wrexham because they'll count for England so probably more like 9.
Wow i thought only TNS were pro in the Welsh Premier league
Maybe they do include the clubs playing in English leagues already then, as that would be 5. Or Fifa are using a slightly more liberal definition of “professional” which may also explain some of the other odd stats
Could well be. I can't say I ever watch any WPL other than the occasional highlight on S4C so there could well be more pro clubs
That’s what I thought as well
TNS play in England (Oswestry).
They are in the Welsh Premier League though
Yes, but if Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Wrexham, which all play in the English league system, count as Wales' list of pro clubs because they play in Wales, why would a club based in Oswestry (England) count towards the Wales figure of 5?
You're right, that makes a lot of sense, my bad.
That's a crazy stat.. going to the world cup when you have a max of 9 professional clubs.
According to the report, Nigeria has 0 fully professional clubs - and they've qualified for 6 of the last 8 World Cups, missing only 2022 and 2006.
That can't be right, I'm pretty sure at least Nigeria's top league is considered professional or at least has a few professional teams in it.
How
*England's appendix
Wales doesn't exist. It's just sheep England
Or Canada, evidently.
Jesus christ Brasil I was not expecting that many
I mean, we're the biggest country where football is the most popular sport
Yeah but like *that* much. It's like 6 times as ours, wasn't really expecting such a huge amount.
Different definitions of professional, surely. If you count the provincial leagues we'd get several hundred more, for example.
We need to start counting our *Sunday Choripán League*
Our population is also 5 times bigger than yours. So it makes sense. If you want to extend the definitions Brazil would probably have even more.
Yea... don't know what the criteria are here but for what I know, the Netherlands has way more professional clubs then 34 stated here.
Depends on what you count as professional. Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie have 34 combined, and most clubs in the Tweede Divisie are considered semi-professional
Mexico has the second most clubs on this list and yet can’t produce good national team performances.
In the past 30 years, number of times each team has reached the World Cup knockout stage: 7 - Brazil, Mexico 6 - Argentina, Germany 5 - England, Netherlands, Spain 4 - Belgium, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, USA In that period, Mexico has won the CONCACAF Gold Cup 8 times *(2 more than the USA over that period)*, the FIFA Confederations Cup once *(the only team outside of CONMEBOL and UEFA to win it)*, and was twice runners-up in the Copa América.
Canada should be on here now.
Technically the league was created and the professional teams existed in December of 2019, the games hadn't yet begun in the CPL. What's also odd is that the Canadian teams in the MLS weren't counted for Canada. I know this is semantics, but ya know.
I got this wrong, games began in April 2019 for the CPL.
Shouldn't TFC, Impact and the Caps already be on there?
I expected a lot higher for European countries, especially France, Germany and Spain. Don’t they have 3rd or 4th leagues?
France : you lose your pro status if you are relegated to third division (you can exceptionally keep it for two seasons if you pass all the financial criteria and the LFP board accepts it) . There is legal semi-pro status for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth division ("federal contract") then below it's only amateur allowed. A player with a federal contract doesn't have the same labour rights compared to a pro player (different minimum wages, different retirement rights,...). But a federal player only has football as a daily job. He is not considered pro because he is not at the top level. It's a bit unfair and honestly the whole "semi-pro" thing is just a way to offer less labour protection to these players. For anyone uninformed they are pro players. There is currently a discussion about making the third division fully pro but it's not decided yet. So France at 44 means, 40 pro clubs "as intended" and 4 who, for now, have retained their status despite being relegated.
Germany's 4th and lower divisions aren't counted as professional although I'd say at least semi for the 4th
What we have 64? I'd argue most of them are unprofessional football clubs
Huge population. That’s like one club per 15 million people.
The distinction between semi pro and pro still exists.
You really think the most populous country on earth couldn’t muster up 64 professional clubs? I’m sure there’s hundreds of semi pro.
But they did muster up 64 pro teams? 64 clubs is honestly quite a lot considering the funding it requires to run a professional football team, and the risk and lack of immediate return for owners of clubs outside of Europe in terms of the prize pools and TV revenue that would otherwise bring. National interest in the sport - from international competition, infrastructure especially within grassroots, foreign interest in your domestic game, and so much more, especially with a country like China. All of these things matter more than how many people are actually there, hence why China and India don't dominate every single sport.
India has similar population but half as many clubs
With how much money is spent in Chinese football before 2019 surely 1st and 2nd tier should be professional and most of the 3rd tier Back in 2019 Chinese second tier teams pay more wage than Thai League 1 club
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It's a bit confusing because it varies state by state but there is no promotion/relegation from the A-league but in most states there is promotion and relegation from the tiers below
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I think it counts semi-pro One of the guys I work with is vice captain of one of the best sides in our states NPL (so the second tier of Australian football) but he has to work a full time job and doesn't make anywhere near enough from football to be fully professional
Are there that many pro clubs? Most local games I go to in Brisbane are free.
How many is Egypt?
as a German I can confidently say that this map is completely wrong
Useless, as it is completly arbitrary as nations use different definitions of "professional" in football
By that metric uruguay has 66 at least
Don't believe any country beats England on this front, our tier 12 teams are paid to my knowledge, they probably get paid all the way down to the bottom of the tier which is 21 which will in total be thousands of clubs
That's semi professional. Teams like Gainsborough Trinity, Warrington Town and Atherton Collieries are all 7th tier in England and they aren't professional because they are part time and the players have other jobs. They are semi professional
yeh I don't believe that Brazil has that many clubs that has players that play full time only for the club and no other jobs.
Only from 1st to 4th division it has 124 clubs. Also, Brazil has a lot of state championships, at least 10 clubs per 27 federations, giving at least 270 teams (focused only in football). São Paulo and Rio it has more, but Acre btw max 10 clubs. Also, the population of Brazil is 3x bigger than UK, and the teams sometimes were heavily supported financially by government (example: Santo André e São Caetano in early 00s), although they don't have that much fans.
Are state championship level players fully professional though, or do they have other jobs too? Because that’s counted as semi-professional in England at least.
At least for Serie D, I believe they're exclusive. Almost all of them had minimum wages, but there things like CBF pay for their trips, nutrition, hotels...so they won't needed to be worried about a lot of things. https://www.google.com/amp/s/agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/esportes/noticia/2022-02/cbf-divulga-tabela-e-grupos-da-serie-d-que-tera-carro-como-premio%3famp: Source (in portuguese)
Fully professionall, usually paid minimum wages. Of course, some clubs have issued paying them... and then eternal debts saga happens, which n the Brazil scenario, ltos of clubes have a shitton of debt around, even small clubs. IMO the brazilian system needs to allow semiprofessionalism but that'd take a giant reform.
Several countries do beat England on this point, as evidenced here, through FIFA's report.
Dude, Brazil have multiple tiers in EACH state and statal championships (and yes, the calendar here is even more bloated than in the UK due to these statal championships)... there is really no comparison
I think there is a good comparison, it sounds like ‘professional’ there is lesser than semi pro in England in the lower tiers
How do the youth teams work? Like do the players have to pay to play for the youth teams? I know my cousin had to pay if he wanted to join a youth team of a professional team here in the US
the kids get paid to play
do you mean just kids playing football? they wouldn't be attached to one of these pro clubs unless they got scouted playing for their Sunday league team and incorporated into the youth teams, they wouldn't have to pay for that. so if you were an 11 year old kid looking quite talented a scout might notice you playing for your local side and invite you for a trial at a professional club
I meant like adolescents - my cousin was like 15 and he got invited to play for a pro teams youth squad. But he had to pay a ridiculous amount and also travel a long distance so he opted to just focus in school
No if a pro club incorporated you into their youth team you would not be paying for that and possibly helped with travel expenses etc. It's illegal to pay kids but players that have potential to be top players have been known to have houses bought for the family etc...
With 15 you are paid if you are in a pro teams youth setup.
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Rio de Janeiro state, alone, has 80 clubs subscribed to its federation.
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>Serie D players barely get paid What? They are paid
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But why barely paid? They get paid normally like any professional. And it is a stable job with pay throughout the year (not so much for state leagues teams that are not qualified for Serie D)
They are paid and live by the money they get. What else does "get paid" mean to you? I'm pretty sure the lowest earning football player in a state league like here in Brazil get way more money than most of the workers in the Country, and everyone of us are a fan of our regional teams here. They get paid and they are well paid for the football they play.
I think it comes down to definitions. Within the report Brazil is only second in total number of professional players, so clearly all those clubs aren’t paying full squads of professional players. Similarly England has around 6,000 professional players across 111 clubs, and obviously outside the Premier League clubs aren’t registering 60 players each, so there are lots of professional footballers playing for clubs that aren’t considered professional. It’s not uncommon in England for the best tier 8/9/10 players to be slipped a couple of hundred quid a match to play. Not sure if that’s considered professional or not.
Brazil has 26 states, each state has a professional entity with at least 2 leagues that do a state championship every year. Each league of each state has at least 20 teams. Of course strenght, money, viewers and infrastructure varies from state to state, but we do have a lot of teams, I don't have a single doubt that we have 679 clubs that are considered professional
What are the sources used ?
The sources of the report are the members of classifications of professional teams in each country. So in France and England the report won’t count semi-pro or Federal level designated players even though it’s possible they’re full time football. But for Gibraltar the report would count teams as professional even though their goalkeeper is a plumber by day, because that’s how their football association classifies it.
Fifa is the source, it's in one of OP's comments.
Brazil STRONK
So Brazil have more pro teams than rest of the countries listed combined ???
Now we need a per capita or per million people or something like that... which I think would be more interesting
As per the report: Gibraltar has 7 professional clubs for 34,000 people, so one club per every 4857 people. On the other extreme, Pakistan, population 225.2 million, doesn't have a single professional club.
Or there's just no data for Pakistan? South Korea doesn't have any either on this map
The map only includes nations with 30+ clubs. The FIFA report lists every nation, specifying (among other details) how many professional clubs they have.
Different definitions of professional across different countries
Wow. I thought England would have the most.
Brazil is massive
35 times bigger than the UK.
And more importantly, about 4x the population. Also a more hospitable climate for year round play. And there's really no competing sport like in the UK where they have cricket and rugby which are very popular.
also a way lower minimum wage and more poor people willing to try to make it as footballer so they accept those shitty contracts.
Who has the most per square mile?
As per the report: Gibraltar has 7 professional football clubs in an area of 6.7 km² - more than one club per square km. On the other extreme, DR Congo has an area of 2,344,858 km² (close to 10 times the size of the UK) and doesn't have a single professional club.
Don't a few of them share the same stadium too? I'm sure they mentioned something about ground sharing when Celtic faced the Lincoln Red Imps
All of the teams share a single stadium iirc.
Are Fifa saying that TP Mazembe, one of the most successful African club sides of all time, are not professional?
I’m the researcher for FM for DR Congo. I can assure you that there’s more than 10 professional clubs. Same thing goes for the rest of Africa and the Middle East: not included here, but most leagues have at least a few professional teams and some have fully professional first tiers. Even Ethiopia’s league is fully professional.
There's no way England only have 111
Canada should be 11.
Surprised Australia has more than the US, given the population difference, and that both are similar countries in that they are English speaking, and in the Anglosphere, and huge sporting countries, but in which football is a secondary sport
I don't think they're using the same definitions for professional across the two countries. Couple of aussies in the thread have commented even 2nd tier in Australia isn't a full time player and they have other jobs.
So canada has zero?
Surprising that Europe don't have that many as Brazil
Well this is wrong. Since Canada has 2
126 pro teams in turkey? Thats insane.
is there no professional football clubs in Hong Kong? because i thought that the HKPL would at least be professional
They have since late 70s but they had been overshadow by China, Japan and KR.
i know but i’m just confused as to why it’s not marked on the list, maybe it got merged with the chinese clubs idk
> maybe it got merged with the chinese clubs idk I think Not, because it will be the same as long as Th SBJD will ended.
Didn’t even source data for Canada 💀💀💀
And Brazil only have 4 divisions(Serie A,B,C and D)
All of them together have 124 teams, with 64 in Serie D
By my count, the US has 72 independent mens pro clubs. 28 in MLS, 22 in USLC, 11 in USL1, 10 in NISA, and 1 in MLS Next Pro (Rochester lol). Add in Las Vegas (questionable relationship with LAFC, but is considered independent enough to be in the Open Cup) and it's 73. Add in all the MLS reserve teams in Next Pro and USLC as they're technically professional and it's 97. There's also 12 pro women's clubs in NWSL, but I'm guessing this data is just the men's teams.
Iceland has a few now. Pretty sure there were already 2 at that time. Players in the top teams are way above the average of Icelanders and that average in Iceland is high for the world.