2023-11-23 13:26:21
Five years following the reform of the Austrian football Bundesliga, the twelve-team league in the upper house and the second league, which has 16 teams, are being evaluated. In the first Bundesliga, at most, fine adjustments such as the end of points sharing in the qualification group are likely; the focus of the discussions is in the unprofitable second league.
In the Bundesliga, the main focus is on the European Cup play-offs and the division of points following the regular round and before the division into a championship and a qualification group. While the distribution of points in the championship group might definitely be maintained, the participants in the qualification group fighting to stay in the league might, for reasons of fairness, take all the points they had won up to that point. A regulation that was recently decided in Belgium. So far, Admira is the only relegated team that would have managed to stay in the league without sharing points since the new league format from the 2018/19 season.
The fact that the evaluation process is carried out earlier than originally planned has primarily to do with the 2nd league. The 16-team league, which includes professional clubs with promotion ambitions, amateur clubs, cooperation clubs and amateur teams from first division clubs, is struggling with financial problems. Although the support payments from the first league have increased from the original 2.3 (2018/19) to 4.3 million euros, and the ÖFB is also helping with 800,000 euros for referee pay or balls, they are the same in the 2021/22 season 13 clubs were in the red.
What is being discussed is whether the 2nd league should be reduced to perhaps twelve teams, how to deal with amateur teams and the promotion and relegation regulations. There are currently one promoted team and three relegated teams.
The process is being supported by the Dutch company Hypercube, which was involved in the development of the Bundesliga reform in 2016 and a first round of evaluation in 2019. The plan is to present a final report to the Bundesliga general meeting on December 7th and make decisions in the spring. The possible changes are to be implemented from the 2026/27 season, until then the current media and exploitation rights still apply.
The Bundesliga decided on a reform in November 2016 at the start of the 2018/19 season. The first league had been increased from ten to twelve clubs and a two-phase championship with points sharing was introduced. The 2nd league had been expanded from ten to 16 clubs as a mix of amateur and professional clubs. Since then, in addition to professional clubs, a maximum of three amateur teams from professional clubs have been permitted, as well as purely amateur clubs, none of which are allowed to advance to the Bundesliga.
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