by Declan Jordan
Recently reading Jonathan Wilson's Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football I was struck by the pattern of success among clubs from capital cities in the former Soviet and Eastern European countries. It reminded me of a section in Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski's Why England Lose and Other Curious Football Phenomena Explained (I prefer that title to the Soccernomics one for perhaps obvious reasons). In Chapter 7 they explain why clubs from provincial cities in Europe tend to dominate European competition. The book was published in 2009 and they made the point then that in the first 41 years of the European Cup (1956 to 1997) there was no winner from a capital city in a democratic country. Real Madrid won it in 1998, 2000 and 2002 when Spain was democratic and since the book was published Chelsea won in 2012. That's four victories in 57 years of European Cup history.
Kuper and Szymanski argue that clubs in capital cities are not as successful as those in provincial cities because football matters less in capitals - because of the availability of other "distractions". It seems as well that history matters. Real Madrid managed to break the pattern of failure of capital city clubs because they had built their stadium, support and brand during the years of Franco's dictatorship. They note that totalitarian regimes tend to send resources (including football talent) to capital cities because that is where they and the bureaucrats live. There is a quote in Wilson's book on Ukrainian football before independence from the Soviet Union that Dinamo KIev were so dominant in Ukraine because the political regime allowed them to hoover up all of the best talent so that they could "represent" Ukraine in the Soviet league. He says
Kuper and Szymanski argue that clubs in capital cities are not as successful as those in provincial cities because football matters less in capitals - because of the availability of other "distractions". It seems as well that history matters. Real Madrid managed to break the pattern of failure of capital city clubs because they had built their stadium, support and brand during the years of Franco's dictatorship. They note that totalitarian regimes tend to send resources (including football talent) to capital cities because that is where they and the bureaucrats live. There is a quote in Wilson's book on Ukrainian football before independence from the Soviet Union that Dinamo KIev were so dominant in Ukraine because the political regime allowed them to hoover up all of the best talent so that they could "represent" Ukraine in the Soviet league. He says
For half a century Dynamo [Kiev] reigned supreme in Ukrainian football, and everybody else still lives in their shadow.
"In the Soviet period, Dynamo were almost sure of beating every other Ukrainian team", Jozsef Szabo, a former Dynamo player who was appointed coach for a second time...explained. "It was like a pyramid in Ukraine with Dynamo at the top". Crucially, the patron of the club through the seventies and eighties was Volodymyr Scherbytskyi, the leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party. "He was a great football fan", Szabo said, "and if there was a good player at Dnipro or Shakhtar or some other Ukrainian club he would make one phone call and the player would be in Kyiv - no money, or anything like that".
It would be difficult to overestimate the extent to which Dynamo dominate the psychological landscape of Ukrainian football.
The table below shows the extent to which clubs from capital cities in former Communist states in central and eastern Europe have won the title since the establishment of independent leagues following the collapse of Communist rule. Most of these leagues began in 1992, so the table refers to 22 seasons to 2013. For comparison it also shows the success of clubs from capital cities in Western European countries for the same period (the nine Dutch titles refer to Ajax - who of course are based in Amsterdam which is the de facto capital of the Netherlands if not the administrative capital - if I use ADO Den Haag the numbers falls to zero).
There appears to be a strong bias in the former communist countries in favour of clubs from the capital cities. This bias is much stronger than it is in western countries. Poland and Lithuania stand out as exceptions where every other country has at least half of the championships being won by capital clubs. In the western states, only Denmark and Belgium have rates of 50% or more. Eight of the thirteen former communist states have rates above two thirds, with Estonia notably not having any winner of their championship from outside of Talinn.
It certainly does seem that there is a path dependency in these countries. Jonathan Wilson's book is not very positive on the organisation and quality of the leagues in these countries so we shouldn't expect to see these countries copying Real Madrid and producing a Champions League winner any time soon.
It certainly does seem that there is a path dependency in these countries. Jonathan Wilson's book is not very positive on the organisation and quality of the leagues in these countries so we shouldn't expect to see these countries copying Real Madrid and producing a Champions League winner any time soon.
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