AFA sells league down the river

The Argentinean Football Association (AFA) on Tuesday announced an overhaul of its league system in reaction to the relegation at the end of last season of River Plate, the most decorated club in the country, to Primera B Nacional.

Relegation from and promotion to the 20-team Argentinean Primera División has, since 1983, been based on an averaging system over three seasons. The two Primera sides with the worst three-year record are relegated at the end of a season, to be replaced by the best two sides from B Nacional. The 17th- and 18th-placed clubs in the top flight's average table face the third- and fourth-ranked teams in B Nacional in a two-leg playoff. River Plate, which has never before played outside the top division in its 110-year history, faced Belgrano de Córdoba in the end-of-season playoff and lost 3-1 on aggregate.

Now the AFA, which introduced the averaging system largely to ensure that its cash-cow clubs of international renown, River and Boca Juniors, should avoid relegation- the system was unveiled in the same year that River would have gone down after finishing 18th in the table- has decided to create a new 38-team league, thus ensuring River's return to the top division, whatever transpires this season.

At an Executive Committee meeting of the AFA, which killed two birds with one stone and sacked national team coach Julio Batista while it was in session, unanimity in the decision to fuse the first and second divisions was not achieved, but neither was it far off. Just four clubs abstained: Newell's Old Boys, Racing, Vélez Sársfield and All Boys. Olimpo did not send its representative. In total, 56 clubs backed the proposition.

"If the assembly approves [the new system] on October 18, as of next year [2012] a new format in Argentinean soccer will begin," said AFA spokesman Ernesto Cherquis.

The new league format will further complicate what is already one of the most convoluted competitions in the sport. Currently, each Primera season is split into two tournaments, the Apertura and the Clausura, while promotion and relegation is prolonged by the play-off system. Under the proposed format, from 2012-13 the Primera División will consist of two groups of 18 teams, plus Boca and River in separate sections. Each side will play one round of 18 matches, with rest days for the other teams designated for matches such as the inter-zone Superclásico between Boca and River. After the first round of matches, the teams will play another round of 19 matches, with rest days for each side.

In the first group, to be called Zona Campeonato, the best 19 teams from the first round will contest the league title. The top-five-placed teams from the two previous Zona competitions will always be present in this group. The winner will be league champion and the second-, third- and fourth-placed teams will qualify for the Copa Libertadores. A fifth place in South America's premier international club competition will go to the winner of the Copa de Argentina.

The second group, to be called Zona Competencia, will consist of the 19 teams with the poorest record from the first round, which will play to avoid relegation. The top two sides from this group will be entered into the Copa Sudamericana. In the 2012-13 season, the bottom four teams will be relegated, and from the 2013-14 season the bottom two sides will descend automatically, with the final two relegation places to be decided using an averaging system between the 36 remaining teams.

As the change has been proposed to take effect from next season, this year there will be no relegation from Primera. The teams that finish in what would be the relegation places will, though, receive less money from the AFA as a result ahead of the 2012-13 season. River is thus virtually guaranteed a return to top-flight status after a season in B Nacional, assuming, of course, it does not finish in the relegation places in the second tier at the end of the coming season.