The “Opta” network for football statistics issued a ranking of the 30 best football leagues in the world for the 2023-2024 season, which witnessed some interesting strange results.
The five major European leagues in England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France retained their leading position among the world’s clubs, but perhaps not in the expected order. The ranking saw the German league occupy second place, ahead of its Spanish counterpart, which finished fourth after the Italian league.
We probably wouldn’t be too surprised to see the English Premier League top the list, but the big surprise was that the Saudi League finished 27th despite its huge deals and attracting some of the best players in the world this season. Even the second division leagues in England, Spain and Germany got ahead of it.
Ranking of clubs Determine the ranking of the best leagues
The ranking depends on the classification of the clubs in each league, which made the English Premier League well deserved because the 20 clubs participating in the Premier League season 2023-2024 had an average team rating of 48.6 and the average team rating on a scale from zero to 100 is 87.1 ( where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best-ranked team in the world), with more clubs ranked in the top ten (Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United) than in any other league.
It may come as a surprise to some that the Luton Town team with the lowest ranking among the Premier League teams came in 116th place, but despite this it ranks higher than 9 clubs in the French League, 7 teams in the Italian League, 4 teams in the Spanish League and 3 from the German League even before The beginning of the season.
Therefore, the German League came as the second strongest league based on the average rating of its clubs in the rankings of its clubs, especially the defending champions Bayern Munich, which occupies second place in the club classification, while Leipzig came in seventh place and Borussia Dortmund tenth, meaning that three of its teams appeared in the first ten positions.
The Brazilian League was the only exception among the top 10 in the rankings, as it ranked ninth thanks to the classification of its clubs also, as Palmeiras ranks 62nd, to be the highest-ranked non-European club in the world.
Palmeiras was joined in the top 100 list by Brazilian Flamengo (80) and Argentine River Plate (85).
The secret behind the decline of the Saudi Professional League from its American counterpart was the average rating of the strength of the clubs in the two leagues, as the average of the American League clubs is 74.77, which is higher than the average of the Saudi League clubs of 71.94.
However, the resounding deals made by the Saudi League clubs may play a major role in achieving jumps in the rankings, which will of course raise the ranking of the local league in the world, especially since it has become one of the most watched leagues in the world due to the weight of the stars who compete in it.
Here are the 30 best leagues in the world, according to Opta Network:
- English Premier League
- Bundesliga
- Italian Leauge
- La Liga
- French league
- English Premier League (Second Division)
- Eredivisie
- Portuguese league
- Belgian league
- Brazilian league
- Swiss league
- Turkish league
- Russian league
- Danish Premier League
- American League
- Austrian League
- Spanish League for the second division
- Polish league
- Argentine league
- Bundesliga for the second division
- Croatian league
- Mexican league
- Cypriot league
- Swedish league
- J. League
- South Korean League
- Saudi League
- Israeli league
- Roman league
- Norwegian league
