April 5 – The Swiss Super League will be expanded from 10 to 12 teams from the 2023/24 season, the league body has said.
The expansion is still subject to approval from the general assembly, but the Swiss Football League (SFL) said that its executive committee has adopted the proposal.
With two more clubs in the top flight, organisers are hoping the league will become more attractive after Bern and Basel dominated Swiss football in the past decade, often winning the title with a more than 20-point lead.
The clubs long resisted the idea because it would imply a decrease in TV rights revenue per club. In the current system, the TV pot is CHF 21.3 million, but the question of the distribution in the new format remains open.
The season would be split into three phases – a regular home-and-away league season, followed by a second stage splitting the table and finally playoffs to decide the champions as well as the European tickets.
The bottom two clubs will be relegated after 32 matches. The SFL will map out the play-off system in greater detail in the forthcoming weeks.
The status of FC Vaduz, the Liechtenstein club that play in the second division, if they were to gain promotion to the topflight and win a European ticket remains an open question as well.
Fourteen of the 20 clubs in the top two tiers will have to vote in favour of the 12-team format for the proposal to pass at the general assembly in May.
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