The International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS), an organisation recognised by Fifa that chronicles the history and records of association football said most national leagues in Africa have suffered due to the political turmoil leading them to drop on the rankings.
According to the IFFHS rankings, Spain’s La Liga, also known as the Primera Division, is currently the strongest league in the world followed by Argentina’s Primera Division. In third place is Brazilian Série A followed by the cash-rich English premiership. The Italian Serie A achieved fewer points in 2011 than in July last year and dropped back 5th place, only just clear of Portugal.
However, lack of sponsorship saw Zimbabwe falling to position 93, as the league was only branded the Castle Lager premiership this year after going for two seasons without sponsorship.
The domestic league is ranked higher than the Tanzania, Kenya, Botswana, Cote d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Swaziland and Botswana national leagues.Although there is always a heated argument that the South Africa premiership is not stronger than the Zimbabwe premiership, the IFFHS ranks the Absa premiership as the 54th strongest league in the world. This places South Africa as the seventh strongest league in Africa while Zimbabwe are placed 15 on the continent. Super Diski currently has the highest number of Zimbabweans playing in the league.
The strongest league in Africa is listed as the MTN Nigerian Premier League followed by Algeria. On the global rankings, the Nigerian Premier League is ranked the 21st strongest league in the world. Last year the strongest was Egypt then ranked 23 last July.
IFFHS said the political turmoil in North Africa led to a decline in the national leagues on that part of the continent. “The struggle for political changes in North Africa has resulted in national competitions in these countries being interrupted or not completed. Many clubs suffered a decline in performance as a result of the social changes. In this region the leagues of Libya (-143), Egypt (-104), Tunisia (-27,5) and Sudan (-17,5 points) did much worse than last year and consequently lost a lot of ground in the world ranking compared to last year,” IFFHS said.
“In comparison with the same point last year, the leagues from Morocco (+81), Congo DR (+41), Senegal (+37), Nigeria (+35), Mali (+31), Cameroon (+29,5) and South Africa (+28,5 points) have all improved and moved up in the global ranking. Consequently all that has resulted in Nigeria being currently rated ahead of Algeria and Morocco as the strongest African league,” IFFHS said.
IFFHS said the classification of the best leagues of the world is made objectively without outside influence of any sort.
