Football | The name change of the Finnish football leagues is so confusing that the Finnish Football Federation had to publish a diagram called a “reduced version”

When the organization is reformed, there is a tendency to rename things. With the new name, we want to express that the new organization does not represent old thinking, but is, as its name suggests, fresh and capable of change.

Often it means replacing the old comprehensible name with a new uncomprehensible name.

The football season is already approaching, and so the Football Association, which administers the sport, published a press release. It told about the match schedule of Miesten Ykkönen – i.e. the second highest league level for men – and the new names of the league levels.

The release said this:

Ykkönen, which will be played in the 2023 season, will be called Ykkösliiga in the 2024 season. The new series that will be formed between the First League and the Second League from the season 2024 onwards is called Ykkönen. In the 2023 season, the team/teams that are relegated from the Veikkausliiga and the teams that remain in the First League will play in the First League in the 2024 season. In the 2023 season, the teams that are relegated from Ykkönen will play in a new series in the 2024 season, which will then be called Ykkönen.

Something like that.

So it appears from the release that Ykkönen will still be Ykkönen this year, but next year there will be a new league level called Ykkösliiga. What is not said directly must be inferred. So next year, the highest league level is Veikkausliiga, the second highest is Ykkösliiga, the third highest is called Ykkönen and the fourth highest is Kakkonen.

This doesn’t make sense in the first place.

There must have been someone in the Swedish Football Association who noticed the confusion, because a diagram was published on the association’s website with the title “Reduced version”. In it, the arrows depicting the change went, for example, from First to First and from Second to First and Second.

Football Britain is considered home. In 1888, the world’s first football league was founded, which was aptly named The Football League. Its top tier was called the first division, the second top was called the second division, and so on.

It was understandable.

In 1991, the league was rebranded. The top level became the Premier League.

Proper noun. Product. New time.

In Finland, the British model was among the first to be adopted. Since 1930, the top men’s league level had been – with the exception of a few exceptional years – called the Championship Series, or SM Series. The name said that the winner of the competition is the best in Finland. In 1992, the new name became Veikkausliiga.

In Britain, the lower league series were also renamed in 2004. The second tier became the Championship, the third tier League 1, the fourth tier League 2.

It was a stupid reform. The names of the sets no longer told what level it was.

But it has been almost 20 years since those reforms. It took so long in Finland to realize that a similar renaming of the organization was not worth doing.

Now it was done.

Football is a game for both men and women – and for the opposite sex as well. In this sense, the names of the Finnish football leagues are even more confusing.

Previously, the highest league level for women was called Naisten Liiga. The Men’s Veikkausliiga, on the other hand, was just the Veikkausliiga without the fact that the players were men. Based on the names, it seemed that men play soccer by default, and the exception to be mentioned are women.

So the Women’s League got a new name for the 2020 season. It became the National League. The gender-neutral name was meant to communicate the egalitarian attitudes of the namer, i.e. Pallloliitto.

However, the same idea does not apply at lower series levels. The No. 1 for male players is called Men’s No. 1 in full, and No. 1 for female players is No. 1 for Women. And the same at a lower level. The future Ikkösliiga applies only to men, but it is not stated in the name.

In the season starting this spring, the Men’s No. 1 and Women’s No. 1 are therefore the second highest league level in their respective countries. Next year, Men’s First will be men’s third level, i.e. equivalent to Women’s Second.

It can be said that the organizational reform was not quite top-notch.