Football statistics network Opta has released a ranking of the top 30 football leagues in the world for the 2023-2024 season, which saw 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, as the ranking saw the Bundesliga finish second ahead of Spain, who finished fourth after Serie A.
Perhaps we won't be too surprised to see the Premier League top the list, but the biggest surprise was that the Saudi league ranked 27th despite its huge deals and attracting some of the best players in the world this season, so that the second-tier leagues in England, Spain and Germany took the lead.
Club Classification Select the ranking of the best leagues
The ranking is based on the ranking of clubs in each league, which made the Premier League deservedly lead because the 20 clubs participating in the Premier League season 2023-2024 received an average team rating of 48.6 and an average team rating on a scale of zero to 100 of 87.1 (where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world), with more clubs ranked in the top ten (Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United). than any other league.
It may come as a surprise to some that Luton Town, ranked lowest among the Premier League teams, came in 116th place, but nevertheless ranks higher than 9 clubs in the French league, 7 teams in Serie A, 4 teams in La Liga and 3 teams in the Bundesliga even before the start of the season.
Therefore, the Bundesliga was the second strongest league based on the average classification of its clubs in the classifications of its clubs, especially the defending champion Bayern Munich, who occupies second place in the classification of clubs, while Leipzig came in seventh place and Borussia Dortmund tenth, meaning that three of his teams appeared in the top ten.
The Brazilian league was the only exception among the top 10 in the rankings, as it ranked ninth thanks to the ranking of its clubs as Palmeiras is ranked 62nd, making it the highest-ranked non-European club in the world.
Palmeiras in the top 100 were joined by Brazil's Flamengo (80th) and Argentina's River Plate (85).
The secret of the Saudi Professional League's decline from its American counterpart was the average ranking of the strength of clubs in the two leagues, as the average of the American League clubs is 74.77, which is higher than the average of Saudi League clubs of 71.94.
But the resounding deals made by the Saudi league clubs may play a big role in achieving leaps in the classification that will of course raise the ranking of the domestic league in the world, especially since it has become one of the most followed leagues in the world due to the weight of the stars who compete in it.
Here are the top 30 leagues in the world according to Opta: