Premier League vs Bundesliga: The co-efficient battle for an extra Champions League spot

UEFA’s co-efficient average has rarely been so compelling. Based on the performance of each league’s participants in Europe this season, two countries will be rewarded with an extra place in next season’s Champions League group stage. Serie A will almost certainly get one of those. The Premier League and the Bundesliga are fighting over the other.

Co-efficient science is not as impenetrable as it sounds. Teams get points for winning games and advancing through competition rounds. There is no difference in weighting between the various European competitions, meaning elimination from the Conference League is as important as progress in the Champions League. At the end of the season, all the points acquired by teams from each league are aggregated, then divided by the number of continental participants from that country.

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Before European football’s resumption this week:

• The Bundesliga’s seven clubs have 114.50 points and a co-efficient average of 16.357.
• The eight Premier League teams have combined for 130 points and a co-efficient average of 16.250.

So, England against Germany: a new arena for their footballing rivalry? Not yet; it remains quite one-sided.

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From an English perspective, this mechanism has broadened the appeal of these knockout rounds, extending it beyond the clubs involved. Instead of the old habit of supporters cackling over their rivals’ continental misfortune, it forces uneasy dependencies and — ultimately — alliances too.

Tottenham are in a fight with Aston Villa for fourth spot in the Premier League. But if fifth place were to come with a Champions League place, then their path back would look more certain. A scenario that becomes far more likely if Arsenal knock out Bayern Munich.

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Manchester United look certain to be exiled from the new Champions League next season, but they would have an outside chance if Manchester City were to defend their title this year. Were West Ham to beat Bayer Leverkusen, it would be one of the bigger upsets of the season. Advancing at the cost of another German team would virtually assure England of that extra place. Which would likely fall into Spurs’ hands.

If City and Arsenal are each eliminated, they can at least console themselves with knowing that they will shut the door on their rivals on the way out.

These new lucky loser spots exist primarily for the benefit of poorly-run “super clubs”. But their unintended effect has been to amplify interest in European competition.

While Premier League supporters are shuffling through this UEFA-branded Snakes & Ladders, the same is not true for the Bundesliga. Certainly not to the same extent; the co-efficient is barely even a topic.

In Germany, Bayern Munich dominate the media landscape to the exclusion of most other clubs. So, because Bayern are guaranteed their place in the Champions League each year, coverage of the race to qualify — and of these co-efficient mechanics — has been almost non-existent.

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While Bayern lock out one of the qualifying positions, Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig have traditionally had a firm grip on two of the others. Only once since 2017 have both teams not finished inside the top four. This season, with Leverkusen runaway (soon-to-be) champions and Stuttgart already practically assured of qualification, Dortmund and Leipzig are fighting over the final spot. It’s not much of an event; it’s hardly a spectacle for the neutral, either.

Leipzig attract nothing but opprobrium in Germany. Given how often Dortmund have qualified, it’s difficult to believe their long-term fortunes are tied to whether they make it this year. It would be a temporary inconvenience, yes, and likely impact their ability to turn loan deals for Jadon Sancho (Manchester United) and Ian Maatsen (Chelsea) permanent, but there would be little lasting impact on the brand.

Over the past five years, Dortmund’s commercial revenue has grown, from €135million (£116m; $146m at current rates) in 2019 to €188m in 2023, helping them to a comfortable 12th place in the latest Deloitte Money League. Combined with that malign indifference to Leipzig, there is little sense of much being at stake here. Whether or not one side misses out this year, the trend suggests they will rebound quickly in 2025.

Compare that to England, with its storylines and implications. The Premier League is a pantomime, cartoonish even, but the dynamics are real enough. Aston Villa could alleviate their concerns regarding the Premier League Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) with the windfall of playing in the Champions League for the first time. Ange Postecoglou and Tottenham could frame their daring style with some real legitimacy. Manchester United might be able to soothe their bruised ego and buy the maligned Erik ten Hag more security.

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It seems, too, as if the culture around Champions League qualification is different in Germany. It remains a target and potentially a triumph — see Union Berlin last year — but without the incentive of long-term opportunity. Perhaps it’s more the hierarchy is more rigid in the Bundesliga. The broadcasting contract is not distributed evenly, but the material vastness of Bayern Munich and, to a lesser extent, Dortmund, also turns European qualification into more of an adventure than a future-altering achievement.

Villa fans might feel playing in the Champions League is another staging post on their road to revival. Conversely, while the same might have been true of Eintracht Frankfurt, if they were in proper contention, or Schalke or Hamburg if they were not mired in the 2.Bundesliga, the restrictions of the 50+1 rule (which ensures that members retain a controlling interest in clubs) and the absence of a wealthy upper middle class in German football means that the same mobility, or aspiration, does not exist.

The German football-industrial complex — the media, the supporters, the clubs — behaves as if it has weightier issues to contend with. The war over the Deutsche Fussball Liga’s (DFL) investment deal has only just finished. The Deutscher Fussball Bund’s (DFB) contentious decision to break with Adidas has provoked battles that have only just begun. Add to that the many arguments across the country about kick-off times, ticket prices and policing tactics and you get a sense for the ideological issues that engulf Bundesliga matchdays and an appreciation for how, for many, performance-related stories do not engender the same interest.

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Outside of direct competition, the sense of rivalry between English and German football is also really a fiction.

The external assumption is that German football’s stakeholders must be doing whatever they can to close the gap to the Premier League. The latter is so quick to flaunt itself as The Best League in the World that the temptation is to believe in a competition and battlegrounds.

But the perspective in Germany seems to be that Premier League football is an outlier — a runaway train that cannot be caught. Faced with investment restrictions in the face of the Premier League’s open-door policy, the Bundesliga can only really be an alternative.

Therein lies the context. A maths-based co-efficient skirmish within an unwinnable war? That is not the easiest sell.

(Top image: Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)