In what came as a big setback to France's premier domestic football competition, Ligue 1 fell out of the top five leagues in Europe for the 2022/23 season, according to UEFA's country coefficients, a metric used to determine the position of Europe's top leagues. Ligue 1, which is widely considered to be Europe's fifth-best league after the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga, is now ranked seventh in the category for the recently-concluded season
According to the UEFA's latest country coefficients, Belgian Pro League which is the premier domestic football competition is ranked five on the list while Netherlands' Eredivisie is ranked sixth.
After Ligue 1's latest demotion, we take a look at the reason, criteria and Europe's top 10 football leagues.
What was the main reason behind Ligue 1's demotion?
In layman's language, Ligue 1 fell behind in the list because the league's clubs performed miserably in the UEFA competitions in the 2022/23 season. The Champions League and Europa League are UEFA's top two competitions followed by the recently-minted Conference League.
If you look back that France's clubs' performance in UEFA competitions last season, it was disastrous, to say the least. Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), which is one the biggest football clubs in the world and the best in Ligue 1, failed to live up to their billing in the Champions League in the 2022/23 season. Bayern Munich defeated PSG in the Round of 16 stage. The other France club that played in the Champions League, Marseille, even failed to qualify for the knockout stage.
In Europa League, Monaco, Nantes and Rennes were defeated in the first round of knockout matches while Nice were defeated in the quarter-final stage in the Conference League.
What are UEFA's country coefficients and how is it decided?
UEFA country coefficients are sort of a metric that the governing body uses to determine which nation's club competition is the best. According to the metric, UEFA calculates the sum of every country's clubs' performances in European competitions over a period of five years. In this scenario, Ligue 1 is still ranked as the fifth-best domestic football league in Europe.
For instance, PSG crashed out of the Champions League in the Round of 16 stage in 2022/23 season but the club reached the final of the competition in 2019/20 season. Thus, the fluctuations over a period of five years for any league are drastic.
According to the data available on UEFA's Club Coeffieints, England's Premier League is at the top with an average of 23 points for the 2022/23 season. Ligue 1 could just manage to secure an average coefficient of 12.583 for the recently-concluded season.
What is the reason behind the decline of Ligue 1 clubs?
France's national football team continues to be ranked in top two of the FIFA Rankings. As per the latest rankings, France are in second place only behind World Champions Argentina. The country's national team won the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and reached the finals in 2022. The amount of talent in France's national squad is unparalleled but the same cannot be said about the nation's top domestic competition.
Most of France's top players play in other countries' premier domestic competitions like the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A or Bundesliga. Kylian Mbappe, the most important France player and the national team captain, does play in the Ligue 1 for PSG but apart from him, there is not much to choose from.
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