Championship the toughest league in Europe? This is what the stats say

Times

8 hours ago

The Championship returns on Friday night when last season's League One champions Birmingham City host Kieran McKenna's Ipswich Town, who were relegated from the Premier League.
Birmingham, whose 111 points in the third tier were a record for the most points earned in a league season, are targeting successive promotions. Ipswich, meanwhile, are hoping to replicate Burnley's experience and yo-yo themselves back into the top flight.
However, even for talented teams such as Birmingham and Ipswich, there are few certainties in a league often described as the hardest and most competitive in Europe — but how true is that claim?
Last season provides plenty of evidence of a robust and competitive league. Luton Town, who were in the Premier League in the previous season were relegated. And both the title race and play-off spots were decided on the final day of the season: Blackburn Rovers (seventh), Millwall (eighth) and Middlesbrough (ninth) all could have secured promotion if results had fallen their way, while the title could have gone to Leeds United or Burnley, who entered the final round of matches tied on 97 points.
And that competitiveness is reflected in how tightly bunched together the table is; just two points separated sixth and eighth, 12th and 15th, and 18th and 22nd.
But competitiveness can also be thought about in terms of the gap between the best teams — Leeds and Burnley — and the worst — Cardiff City.
There was a 56-point differential between them, and a goal difference margin of 90, but compare those discrepancies between the top and bottom teams in Europe's top five leagues, and the Championship appears much more competitive, even when accounting for points or goal difference per game.
However, this methodology can be skewed by extreme performances at the top or bottom of a division. A better way of measuring competitiveness is by calculating the share of points won in the league and working out how even that spread is: if a few clubs dominate that share then it's an uncompetitive league; and if there's a more equal spread then it's a competitive one.
This approach is used by economists for calculating social inequality, and is known as the Gini coefficient: a value closer to zero means that the league is more equitable, whereas one closer to one represents a less equal (and more uncompetitive league).
Last season, the Championship's Gini coefficient was 0.13, which represents a very competitive league. This chart, below, shows the Championship's Gini coefficient for the past 30 seasons:
When compared to Europe's top five leagues — the Premier League, Ligue 1, the Bundesliga, La Liga, and Serie A — the Championship looks far more competitive.
In fact, all five of Europe's leagues are trending towards being less competitive over that 30-year period, with an acceleration in that phenomenon over the past 15 years, something that owes to the financialisation of the game and the widening gap between teams that feature in Europe (and benefit from broadcasting revenues, in particular), and those that do not.
Their coefficients of 0.2 (Premier League and Serie A) and 0.18 (Ligue 1, the Bundesliga, and La Liga) are still good, 'healthy' scores, representing competitive leagues, but the Championship is much more evenly contested.
Of the 1,498 points won in the Premier League last season, 8 per cent were amassed by Liverpool; Leeds, in comparison, contributed 6.7 per cent of points in the Championship. But this analysis considers the league as a whole; what about title challenges, and the teams contesting promotion — are those races competitive?
In this respect, the picture is nuanced. Title races seem to have got closer: the difference between the first and second-placed teams is falling.
But this is also where we begin to see some signs of uncompetitiveness, as a tight battle between first and second means the standards for securing automatic promotion are rising.
And, at the same time, the gap between third and sixth (the play-off places) is growing.
As illustrated in the points difference between the top two (falling), and between third and sixth (rising).
The play-offs themselves — as a knockout competition — help to maintain competitiveness, irrespective of that widening gap. Yet it's also striking that the average number of points from teams that have been relegated from the Premier League in the previous season has been growing.
These teams, who benefit from Premier League revenues and subsequent parachute payments, are finding it easier to improve their squads and perform better in the Championship.
A few other, slightly less competitive trends emerge in the bottom half of the table too: the average number of points accumulated by the bottom three sides is falling — the 46.33 points earned last season appears an exception to the general trend.
In turn, this means that the threshold of points required to avoid relegation has fallen incrementally.
Likewise, the average number of points earned by teams promoted from League One is decreasing; ie, teams promoted from League One into the Championship are finding it harder to compete.
These smaller trends away from competitiveness appear to be the consequence of the Championship sitting within the Premier League's orbit.
Teams who are chasing promotion to the English top-flight often recruit players capable of playing in it, so too those teams relegated from it. In turn, this means securing automatic promotion is getting harder, and those teams promoted from League One are facing opponents of a physical and technical level that they are not used to.
However, despite these quirks at the very top and bottom of the league, the Championship remains very competitive.
A range of different experts and analysts have attempted to quantify its strength, and there is a broad agreement that it is one of the top ten divisions in the world, comparable to leagues such as Brazil's Serie A.
But coaches and experts say the real secret to its competitiveness is actually in the intensity of the matches and their frequency. Few leagues challenge players, managers and squads like the Championship with its 46-game season. The tight turnaround between matches leaves little time for recuperation, let alone preparation.
Even with more Premier League players and money dripping down into the Championship and augmenting some of the teams towards the top of it, the English second division remains tougher and more competitive than Europe's top five leagues.