Meistriliiga in english

[Fabien_the_Frenchman]

Hi,

I'm Fabien and I'm French.
Yes you are probably wondering what a Frenchman's doing here on the Estonian League forum? Actually I follow results on soccerway.com for one year and secondarily I bet on Meistriliiga rather often... Besides I'm member of a big French betting forum and since the beginning I've been creating a thread about Estonian League (I sum up every match played and give bet advice before match...). In the beginning as you can imagine, French wasn't really interested, but after few weeks several members became interested, so I’m continuing to sustain the thread with information.

As one goes along I become a grand fan of Meistriliiga, I’m not sure you can find better in France… but actually it’s really hard to find information or (press) article in French or English about Meistriliiga (excluding articles about the not very flattering lowest average attendance…) …

So I’m wondering if you could say straight about Estonian League? I was numerous question about it, don’t worry!^^ And if you are interested we could debate here in English about every games, transfers, injuries etc… ?


So here my question, some are rather sportive and some are more sociologic (as the first one).

So first I’m wondering what the position of football in Estonian society? I mean in countries like France, England, Spain and Italy, football is almost part of the mores you know but is it the same in Estonia. Is football popular in Estonia? Maybe foreign football like the Premier League is more popular in Estonia? Besides, are the Meistriliiga games broadcast? I try to find it on the internet but I didn’t find. Your answers will maybe enable me to understand why the average attendance is so low in Meistriliiga.

Then I’m wondering if the 10 clubs of Meistriliiga are professional? I read on Wikipedia that only 6 clubs are, but I don’t know which one? Besides, seeing the low attendance during games and probably the low broadcasting rights), I’m wondering how clubs can pay for players and staff salaries, for transfer (are they expensive? same question about salaries), arena care and construction (I saw Flora’s stadium, how beautiful it’s!)…. ?

One Estonianman from a football management game (hattrick.org), who told me to ask my question here, told me that Trans Narva was know quilty for match fixing… but he didn’t really say more, so I’m wondering if there are recently scandal about match fixing in Estonia ?

To finish do you think is it possible for Levadia Tallinn not to win the season? :P Personally I can’t imagine them not to win^^ Besides why have they been so higher than their competitor for years ? Is it a matter of money like it is in England with “Big Four” and the rest… ?



So that my first questions…but I have several others, and more will probably appear during the discussion, I will ask later^^

Sorry for my English, I know it’s not perfect, I probably made bad grammar, but I think I’m understandable, I’m sure you’ll not hold it against me^^

Thank you !



I hope my thread don’t disorder the forum’s organization (if it does, please accept my excuse).

[zip]

Football is popular in Estonia, but the league itself isn´t. I´d say foreign leagues like Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga are much more popular. Meistriliiga games don´t get big audiences, 100-200 people per game, unlike the national team that get´s 3000-6000 per game. A smaller TV channel TV14 broadcasts certain games. All clubs are not professional and two clubs in the league are Flora´s sister club´s. Professional clubs in the current Meistriliiga are: Levadia, Flora, Trans, Sillamäe, Kalju, not sure about Tartu Tammeka and FC Lootus. Paide LM, FC Kuressaare and Viljandi Tulevik are not professional.

[IndrekL]

As zip said, the game itself is popular and the number of amateur and youth teams reflects that. But if you take the game from a supporting perspective, then it's quite the opposite. The main reason is believed to be the fact that since all the teams are quite new (Flora from the early 90s, Levadia the late 90s etc) people don't have any historical connections with them. So the teams lack some identity.

Another problem is infrastructure. In spring the conditions for both the players (bad quality astroturf pitches) and spectators (no wind protection, watching behind heaps of snow etc) are pretty poor. So that doesn't attract many people; especially if you have the alternative of basketball, which is indoors. And well, in the summer everyone's at their summer cottages drinking beer and having a good time, since the warm weather doesn't last very long. But that's just my opinion.

As for Levadia - the money matters, but the main reason is that they are probably the only club, who have steadily built their team from the ground up (they have very good youth teams). Others (like Flora) have constantly sold their best players after successful seasons.

To add to the lack of interest in Meistriliiga games, I'd say that unless you go looking for information about the games, you won't get it. "Hardcore" football fans read Soccernet.ee, but they are a big minority. The national team games are advertised and therefore "regular" fans also know that they are actually taking place, but with Meistriliiga that isn't the case. (It may seem ridiculous to say that ML fans are hardcore, but if you take into consideration that there are only about 150 people per game who are willing to watch games in i.e. -5 degrees, then comparing the two sets of fans kind of makes the definition plausible)

[holst9]

little bit offtopic, but fabien, what do you think about french national team chances in world cup finals? i can say that I have been the supporter of france since the 1998 world cup quarterfinal against italy.

[رجل بلا اسم]

little bit offtopic, but fabien, what do you think about french national team chances in world cup finals? i can say that I have been the supporter of france since the 1998 world cup quarterfinal against italy.

Bugger off.

I see the reasons behind low attendance figures and Estonians' general lack of interest in football being indicative of our society in general. It's been only some 19 years after restoring independence which means our culture in almost every aspect (whether talking about sports, music, politics, or even eating or drinking) is still at grassroot level (the devastating impact of Soviet Union should not be underestimated). Roughly speaking, an average Estonian is a self-destructive and stressed-out workaholic whose main idea of quality entertainment is getting oneself blind drunk every Friday night. We have a lack of long-lasting traditions and positive, healthy, productive means and ways of living and thinking.

Football, more specifically, during the Soviet Era was largely seen as "Russians' game" while basketball, for example, was and still is more popular here (amongst general public, that is, the number of people actively involved in football surpasses any other sport). It will most definitely change but it'll take time as the tens of thousands of youngsters (and their children and grandchildren) currently playing and training and loving football grow up and start to shape the face of our football culture.

[meesmuiste]

Footballs part in society is steadily growing. You can see it also from national team attendances, as in beginning of 90 when Italy came to play qualification matches there were like 3000 spectators. In september full house is expected. And to zip information, that lowest attendance in WC2010 qualification matches were 4000. Usually it was over 6000, top games almost 10000 (friendlies had 2000-8500). Numbers are going up even in Meistriliiga. To be honest very steadily still.

There have been numerous articles in Estonia where is explained, that during soviet times our football was killed and was also said that this is no sport for estonians, it is more russian game. The killers were actually estonians themselves. It came because football was very popular in Russia and they thought that we will never be ready to compete them. But the money was given according to results. So they thought we better have more archery guys then, because then we can get the points and money. Tbh there were always some estonians playing, but there were very few of them. New start begun in 80s with youths, including Ott Mõtsnik, Mart Poom, Martin Reim etc. With 20 years there has been quite a progress. In the beginning of 90s there were 10 times more basketball (was main team sport then) players than footballers, now there are twice more footballers than basketball players. But these exact numbers are always up to discussion But you get the picture.

Even though there are more football players, they are mostly very young. So at first it seems weird, that we have more football players than basketball players but basketball has bigger attendances. The reason is as "no name" put it - they are still growing (even though I can't agree that estonians are so self-destructive). As i've debated on this theme, it seems that usually people over 30 atm are more pro basketball, under 30s are more pro football.

Yes, Narva Trans just were accused in fixed games. Information came from Betradar system. There are suspicious in two games from this year - against Levadia and against Kohtla-Järve. FA decided to give last warning. If there are any new cases, the club will be removed from Meistriliiga and from other competitions.

This year seems to become more interesting in Meistriliiga, as Sillamäe is building up strong team, Kalju has new faces, Flora is building also from youth (key players like Mihkel Aksalu, Martin Vunk, Tõnis Vanna left). But mainly because Levadia has lost some key players from last year. Sander Puri, Vitali Gussev, Tihhon Šišov, Martin Kaalma (ok, he is back, but only when necessary), Kristjan Marmor. Ok, they signed Eduard Ratnikov and Volodin. So the teams are more even now even though Levadia still seems to have a cutting edge. The money factor is important but not so big factor, as the club budgets in top do not differ in 10s of millions.

As said before, then pro clubs are FC Levadia, FC Flora, Nõmme Kalju, Sillamäe Kalev, Narva Trans. Semi-pros are Tartu Tammeka, Viljandi Tulevik. 3 others are amateurs (including some ex-pros).

Clubs mainly seem to exist thanks to sponsors, selling their players (Flora), local goverments (usually they support very little).

[Nohik]

I see the reasons behind low attendance figures and Estonians' general lack of interest in football being indicative of our society in general. It's been only some 19 years after restoring independence which means our culture in almost every aspect (whether talking about sports, music, politics, or even eating or drinking) is still at grassroot level (the devastating impact of Soviet Union should not be underestimated). Roughly speaking, an average Estonian is a self-destructive and stressed-out workaholic whose main idea of quality entertainment is getting oneself blind drunk every Friday night. We have a lack of long-lasting traditions and positive, healthy, productive means and ways of living and thinking.

There is no need to be that melodramatic...



Anyway Fabien if you want to make some easy money just put it on Levadia winning the league. Oh and about the proadcasting rights. I think the Estonian football association actually pays to have some matches shown on telly or at least used to. That is what I was told a while ago but I might be wrong.

But yeah there is way too much emphasis on pointless sports like skiing and track and field things where we might win a medal or 2 every now and then than football that has far more kids participating... Someone posted figures that showed how football got far less government support than other sports but I can´t find it right this second.

[meesmuiste]

Hei Fabien,

You can check videos from Meistriliiga from youtube - http://www.youtube.com/ejltv

Also in this forum and thread, called videokokkuvõtted, are also videos from different matches.

[Fabien_the_Frenchman]

First thank you zip, IndrekL, رجل بلا اسم , as I expected I read numerous things I didn’t know about influence of Russia and in general about Estonian culture. One thing seems sure as some made their points football should increase his importance in Estonia little by little. Besides Basketball seems to be more important in Estonia that I could imagine (in France and in England this sport has a minority position).


Thank you meesmuiste, a lot of French forum member asked me where they can watch video of Estonian football and I could answer them, now I can.

Sorry I didn’t understand, you said “the club budgets in top do not differ in 10s of millions”. You mean the club budgets is 10 million €uro? If I do understand it’s quite good in a country where the income from television and match are very low!
Beside you talked about transfer, are the prices transfers publicized? I mean a standard transfer is around 100 thousand €uro, or 10 thousand, or 1 million?...

Besides you said that clubs exists partly because of sponsors but if the attendance are very low and that few people look broadcast games the income from sponsor are probably also very low, aren’t they ?

About Trans Narva’s fixed games, does it make scandal ? or has it curiously gone unnoticed ? I ask it because in France, such a news would make furor^^ last fixed match was in 1993 and we still heard about it nowadays^^


Nohik : about betting, unfortunately Levadia is so fancied that none bookmaker offers bet for season winner^^

Besides you make me wonder if Estonian people bet? Are there betting store as there are in England or Asia with thousand of football coupon? In France bets always have existed but people didn’t really infatuate with bet. Betting on the internet was still banned some weeks ago, but finally a very recent law changed it (the problem isn’t that government is against betting but they wanted to keep their monopoly [because the only bookmaker allowed was a state-owned company which was gold-plated]).

Then, you wrote something who really mad0e me laugh : “I think the Estonian football association actually pays to have some matches shown on telly or at least used to” : Does really Estonian football association pay to have their games broadcast ?? that rather funny, because in countries like France, England, Holland… that’s the TV channel who spend millions to broadcast game^^ For example an average Ligue 1 club receive around 15 million euro to have his games broadcast. Some like Lyon received 40 million !!


Holst9: I will answer you later if you want in another thread.


Then I’m wondering what’s the importance of Baltic League ? Is it a minor or major competition according to you ?

[billybob]

I think the avg budget is rather 10 million kroons :d, not euros. So thats just under 1 million euro.

I do not think estonian clubs buy players much, we sell and take whatever is free...

Yeah, the Trans scandal created much furor like you said. But in the end the FA did nothing (warned them) and the public saw no evidence to be honest and the club officials still say they are innocent. So who knows.

Cant really say anything about betting or TV casting.

[Martin]

I think the avg budget is rather 10 million kroons :d, not euros. So thats just under 1 million euro.

In 2009 the budgets were as follows (in Estonian kroons, http://www.ohtuleht.ee/index.aspx?id...ora+miljonit):
TALLINNA FC LEVADIA - 12 million Kroons
TALLINNA FC FLORA - 30 million Kroons
NARVA JK TRANS - 5 million Kroons
NÕMME JK KALJU - 5,5 million Kroons
SILLAMÄE KALEV - 4,5–5 million Kroons
VILJANDI TULEVIK - 1,5 million Kroons
TARTU JK TAMMEKA - 4 million Kroons
TALLINNA JK KALEV - 2,7 million Kroons
FC KURESSAARE - 1 million Kroons
PAIDE LINNAMEESKOND - not known, probably less than Kuressaare

In 2010 the sums are probably smaller.

[meesmuiste]

so that you can calculate
1 euro = 15.6 krooni

[Fabien_the_Frenchman]

Oh yes if the budget are in kroons I understand it better^^
I believed Estonia you have €uros.
Thank you for the budgets scale, very interesting to see the gab between Levadia+Flora and the other one...

the budget of Flora is very strong compared with the one of Levadia. Doesn't it make controversy when Levadia finishes always before Flora ?

[marcello]

Flora's budget also includes women's and youth teams

[Martin]

Flora's budget also includes women's and youth teams

Other teams have those expenses also, Flora just has more teams and infrastructure to take care of.