by blutgraetsche Tue Aug 20, 2013 2:11 pm
It's the Bundesliga due to the structures and sound, sustainable business model, amongst many other reasons.
The level of competitiveness is actually improving, despite Bayern's dominance, as paradox as it may sound. Dortmund just passed the €250m revenues barrier, which should comfortably place them in the top 10 of the next Deloitte money ranking. Bayern will likely make more than €400m this year and close the gap to the Spanish giants, but the gap to Dortmund and other Bundesliga top clubs has decreased a bit, because the others have simply grown faster.
The level of competitiveness at the very top is very similar in every major European league these days, it's basically the same clubs winning the league more often than not. The real differentiator is the level of competitiveness below that. From those 18 Bundesliga clubs, most have relatively similar financial means and hence similar ambitions. You could go even further than that and add a number of Bundesliga 2 clubs to the picture, the 'Fahrstuhlmannschaften' stuck between the first and second division. The level of competition there is very very high, as can be seen in the fluctuation there. Clubs like Werder or Wolfsburg went from winning the league to the relegation zone in a relatively short period of time. The other way around happens pretty often, too.
England is similar in some aspects when it comes to the level of competition (structures are a whole different matter), but the top four there are way more 'stable' than they are in Germany, which means that the gap between the strongest and weakest teams is higher.
Serie A lacks the structures and 'professionalism' of the Northern European leagues but they've actually taken steps to improve the level of competition by distributing TV revenues more fairly, in stark contrast to La Liga. I expect Italy to bounce back once the financial problems there are sorted out.
La Liga used to be very exciting and I still enjoy the tactical and technical level of football on display, but to be fair, the focus is solely on the two juggernauts. In the early noughties, the likes of Valencia or Deportivo impressed with dazzling football, but those days will probably never come back. La Liga's problems are huge and there is no solution in sight.
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