1 The need of competitive balance in European professional soccer: A lesson to be learned from the North American professional leagues.

• In a league with high Competitive Balance (CB) all teams at the start of a season have a realistic expectation to perform well and end up high in the final ranking. The result is that almost no teams are constantly ranked in the top or in the bottom of the league. • Without interfering in CB, big city teams or teams with deep pocket investors will dominate the league and will constantly be ranked in top of the leagues. • The CB is much higher in North America (NA) for all Big-4 leagues than for soccer in Europe (EUR). • NA focuses on CB to optimize turnover, profit and economic growth of a league. EUR can learn from NA´s experiences. Lack of governing CB in EUR soccer will on the long run result in less growth in revenues, financial gambling in reaching playoffs, bankruptcies, rival leagues and fewer fans for the EUR-leagues. Based on comprehensive analysis we suggest the following for European soccer: • EUR soccer leagues must realize, that to influence and govern CB is important