In 2020 The European League of Football (ELF) was created with Željko Karajica as the Chief Executive Officer and Patrick Esume as the Commisioner. It appears that the goal of the entire operation was to create a professional football league that could be sustained with mostly local players.
By local I mean from the same country not necessarily from the same city or the particular area where the team was located. The hope was to create interest among the citizens of Europe.
It’s the opposite approach the NFLE (National Football League Europe). The NFLE made a mistake in thinking Europe would become a giant market if they brought mostly US players to various cities in those countries.
They were right – it is a giant market. Mostly untapped when it comes to football. Actually, there is a great deal of interest in football – the NFL games overseas are giant hits. With the time differences between the continents it is a bit difficult – but quite honestly Europe loves pro football.
Their mistake is believing that Europe would embrace the games and produce big crowds. Well, without local players the NFLE was destined to fail.
The ELF has an interesting approach. There is no doubt that you need some talent at key positions like quarterback, speed wide receiver, pass rusher and a cover cornerback. With that in mind the league rules allow each team to have a total of four imports from either the US, Canada, Japan or Mexico (almost all are from the US).
Each team can also roster six players from another country in Europe other than their home base. For instance, German teams can add six players from say various countries like France, Austria, Spain etc.
The team in Paris can get a six-man combination from maybe Germany, Spain, Denmark etc.
The rest of the roster has to be generated from the team’s home country.
Currently teams in the league are allowed a roster of 65 players. The make-up would be 53 active players and 12 practice squad members. (46 are allowed on game day).
So, in reality you need to try and find 55 players who are “home-grown.”
Not a problem for most European countries with large populations – but Switzerland is small.
The nine countries which have franchises in the ELF population wise: Germany (83.2 Million), France (64.7M), Italy (58.7M), Spain (47.5M), Poland (41M), Czech Republic (10.4M), Hungary (10.1M), Austria (8.9M), Switzerland (8.7M)
Interestingly enough your “country of origin” is not according to your passport. But rather to where you started playing football! We have a few players from western part of Switzerland who live in Switzerland but actually started playing football in France. Therefore they would count as imports if they played for their actual country!
Teams throughout Europe … most in Germany.
First year (2021) there were eight teams:
- Hamburg Sea Devils (Germany)
- Frankfurt Galaxy (Germany)
- Leipzig Kings (Germany)
- Cologne Centurians (Germany)
- Barcelona Dragons (Spain)
- Stuttgart Surge (Germany)
- Wroclaw Panthers (Poland)
- Berlin Thunder (Germany)
Second year (2022) four teams added :
- Vienna Vikings (Austria)
- Tirol Raiders (Austria)
- Istanbul Rams (Turkey)
- Rhein Fire (Germany)
Third year (2023):
Istanbul withdraws after the second season.
New Teams added:
- Paris Muskateers (France)
- Prague Lions (Czech Republic)
- Helvetic Guards (Switzerland)
- Munich Ravens (Germany)
- Milano Seamen (Italy)
- Fehérár Enthroners (Hungary)
Leipzig Kings withdraw during the season.
Prague suspends play for a week … the league bails the franchise out so they can play.
The European League of Football play with NFL rules with exception of kickoff – which is designed to be similar to the XFL’s rules.
The ELF overtime rule is like the NCAA format.
Note here: Referees are improving … but they have a tendency to watch the game and miss things right in front of them. Often the more powerful and established teams have a definite advantage in games in regards to penalty calls. I do see it getting better though.
My belief is that the ELF administration is trying to “shine-up” their product and hopefully get the NFL interested enough to put some money into the league. I’m not sure that this could happen despite the growing popularity of football.
I’m guessing the NFL is happy enough to let someone else spend their money and still come and give the best ELF players a tryout and perhaps even keep one on the practice squad.