Outside the hall, snow is consolidating into ice and the pavements are increasingly treacherous. Inside a drum’s beat is echoing among the scattering of fans watching from an overhead gallery and RFS, the Latvian champions, are dominating their pre-season game against Nomme Kalju from Estonia. When their towering Albania defender, Herdi Prenga, puts them two up the outcome is effectively sealed and the only surprise is that a combative but less fluent away side introduce some doubt with a late consolation.
With winter rendering the adjacent grass pitch unplayable they are under a roof competing in the Livonian League, a new friendly tournament that pits teams from Latvia and Estonia together before domestic campaigns resume in March . But there is a growing movement in favour of making these fixtures a more formal, meaningful occurrence: as part of a pioneering, Uefa-approved cross-border “Baltic League” that would also include sides from Lithuania. Many in smaller countries sense existing structures are unequipped to deal with football’s perpetual widening of competitive and financial gulfs.
“I believe this is the best region in Uefa territory to pilot a cross-border league,” says Maksims Krivunecs, the president of Latvia’s top division, the Virsliga. “We are three very close countries socially, economically and culturally. Travel and logistics aren’t difficult. And then there’s the most important factor: we’re very similar in terms of football.”
Krivunecs has been instrumental to a proposal that, should all stakeholders be persuaded, would see the top four teams from all three Baltic states converge in a combined league during the second half of each season. In the 2023 campaign, RFS dropped only two points against opponents from outside Latvia’s top five. The theory goes that regular meetings with, for example, Flora Tallinn or the regional giants Zalgiris Vilnius would equip them better for European competition while creating financial opportunities that would benefit the entire local ecosystem.
Aleksandrs Usovs, the RFS director of football, looks on as his imaginatively scouted squad of 12 nationalities outmanoeuvres its opponents with attractive, high-tempo patterns. “We want to have stronger competition, so the best clubs from Estonia and Lithuania can give us that,” he says. “Our population is just under 2 million people, but if we join with them and create a market of 6 million it will attract a different level of attention from media, fans, sponsors and also at government level.”
In 2022 the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian top flights brought in revenues of £25m, £13m and £11m respectively. It goes without saying that there is no aspiration to rival the English Premier League’s £5.5bn. But what if joining forces created a league with similar potential to that of, say, Denmark, which earned £246m; or, perhaps more realistically, the £83m posted by the Czech First League?
For one thing it would, Usovs argues, help clubs to transfer players more effectively. The Virsliga has Europe’s youngest average age and has become viewed as an increasingly viable stopping-off point for prospects from elsewhere. Last summer RFS sold the Serbian striker Andrej Ilic to Vålerenga, in Norway, for £1.4m; in January they took a healthy sell-on fee when he moved on to Lille for £3.4m. The 2022 champions, Valmiera, have earned a notable £5m in sales over the past two years. Latvia has no domestic television deal so, with wider exposure and a higher level of football, its clubs would stand to do brisker business developing talent.
“I see a Baltic league as being the only way to go,” Krivunecs says. “We can continue as we are for quite a while, but the problem is that other leagues are developing in the meantime. Domestic football is enjoyable but at international level we are struggling.
“Being small is to our advantage: we can be more creative, more flexible in trialling new projects and formats. We’ve analysed this for a long time; it’s not just sprung up.”
Krivunecs, who is highly rated within European football and will run in the Latvian FA presidential election this April, is not short of sympathisers on the continent but his biggest challenge lies in persuading those closer to home. He explains the Virsliga’s 10 clubs are unanimously onboard and that is born out in conversation with a senior board member at one of its smaller sides, who would not necessarily be expecting to qualify for a Baltic league every year. “We need to try something different,” that figure remarks. “Otherwise we will become isolated.”
According to Krivunecs, clubs in Estonia and Lithuania are also receptive. But others in key positions are not so keen. “The answer from our side is no,” the Estonian FA president, Aivar Pohlak, tells the Guardian. “Our market situation is different, so in the short term we would be the losers. Our only chance is to build up our own financial model, with income sources accepted by our society.
“It’s not difficult to think about a tougher competition that supports the game’s development, but it will end up with ‘who brings in better foreign players?’ Structurally our football remains somewhere in the last century, so we mainly have to think about developing our own culture.”
Pohlak points out a version of the Baltic league was trialled in the late 2000s, albeit with no link to the domestic setups or Uefa competitions.
It was, he says, dogged by match-fixing issues. But those who took part have rosier memories. Jurijs Zigajevs, a winner with Ventspils in 2009, is another onlooker as RFS beat Kalju and enthuses over “great memories” of a final against the Lithuanian side Suduva. “I don’t see why it couldn’t work this time, provided each country keeps its European places,” he says.
Krivunecs’s proposal does just that. He is undeterred by dissenters and believes a joint venture with Lithuania would initially suffice if Estonia demur. His research has found supporters are, in general, enthused and he points out some fans have travelled between countries to watch Livonian League games. Any formal proposal between the states would need signoff from Uefa.
That would appear more likely than ever in a space where, after the European court of justice’s Super League ruling in December, football’s future shape is under intense debate. The topic of cross-border leagues is hardly new: an all-Ireland league has been mooted for some time and, two years ago, a group of Belgian and Dutch clubs tabled a proposed BeNeLiga to the Uefa president, Aleksandr Ceferin.
That fell down, largely through opposition in the Netherlands, but there is a growing sense football’s authorities would be receptive to the right idea.
Last month Ceferin told the Guardian that there had been “many discussions” around the topic and suggested a solution that preserved domestic leagues would hold weight.
One source with a close interest in European competitions describes the potential Baltic league format as perfect and laments the fact Uefa has not stepped forward with funding for a pilot, saying the authorities know cross-border football is a matter of time. In other encouraging news for Krivunecs’s scheme, Fifa is understood to have recently funded a research project on the potential governance of a Baltic league.
Full validation will not come, though, until it gets off the ground. Usovs fears RFS will hit a ceiling without radical change, saying: “We are now as big as the market is, and it’s really hard to over-perform the market.” For Krivunecs, it is time to take the next step. “We’re a platform for local and international talents,” he says. “We know our place, we do our job well. Now we want to adapt and have a chance to move forward.”
