Give Me the First Division and European Cup

By Andrew Carreiro | 24th June 2009

Give Me the First Division and European Cup | read this item

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scunthorpe-united What is it with all of these stupid confusing names when it comes to different league names and tournaments? I’m talking about some of Europe’s domestic leagues and two UEFA club competitions. Why do they have to have these fancy names like Premiership and Europa League? They should just stick with a name that is simple and that tells you what the competition is.

Let’s look at the Champions League first. Prior to the 1992/1993 season the competition was called the European Champion Clubs Cup (European Cup for short), which was a good name. The competition included the winners of all of Europe’s leagues playing to see who would be the European Champion. Then, starting in 1992/1993, the name was changed to the Champions League and started to include teams that finished in second and third place in their domestic league.

It makes absolutely no sense to call this competition the Champions League. When’s the last name Liverpool was actually a champion? UEFA actually has the two names mixed up if you think about. It should’ve been called the Champions League back when only the champions played in the tournament. They need a new name – the name Champions League implies that all the teams in the competition are champions when they clearly are not: Liverpool, Roma, Villarreal, etc. Call it something like the European Cup. Perhaps the name should’ve never been changed.

UEFA decided to change the name of the UEFA Cup to the Europa League starting this year. They changed the format so I guess they figured they had to change the name. Why? There’s no reason to change the name just because they changed the format. My guess is they’ll change the name another 5 times over the next 30 years. Just for the record, I actually like the new format, but keep the old name. Now future fans 20 years from now who didn’t grow up with the UEFA Cup will have no idea that the UEFA Cup is actually the Europa League – they’re the same competition.

Now for the Premiership and the Championship. There’s really no reason to call these leagues what they are called. The Championship? What do you think of when you hear someone say the Championship? If someone went up to you and said “I play for a Championship club” you’d probably be like “Damn, guy must play for some big club”. No, he actually plays for Scunthorpe United. No offense to Scunthorpe United, but I wouldn’t exactly call them a Championship club.

As far as the Premiership goes, it’s just a pointless name that tries to make the league seem more prestigious – not that it isn’t a prestigious league, it is. It’s just that it makes a lot more sense to call it the English First Division, the championship would be the English Second Division, and so on. Or maybe that would be too logical, not to mention they’d lose money from Barclays. It’s just my opinion that certain things shouldn’t be about money, and the name of your league is one of them.

Not to be outdone, the Portuguese decided to change their name as well. It was always known as A Primera Divisao (First Division), but with all of these name changes going on around Europe they didn’t want to be left behind, so they changed the name. They changed the name to A Super Liga. Yeah, that’s right, they changed it to the Super Liga. The reaction of most Portuguese people to this name change was “Super Liga? More like Super Merda” (translation, Super S**t). They then decided to change the name to Liga Sagres. It’s still stupid but better than Super Liga. At least it’s named after a good beer.

I know I left out some other leagues with stupid names, but it would take forever to write about all of them. I just don’t see the need for these names. Just call your top league the first division, and so on. It will make it much less confusing and easier to follow especially when you start getting into the lower leagues.

Agree with Andrew? Can’t stop laughing at Scunthorpe United? Have your say below!