The debate over expanding the Botola to 20 clubs cannot be reduced to a question of format. Behind those four additional teams lies an extremely important question: with what money?
Several “professional” clubs are already experiencing cash-flow difficulties and regularly call for an increase in the resources made available to them. In this context, expanding the league also means bringing four new clubs into the distribution of those resources. Unless the competition generates more revenue, the same pie will have to be divided among twenty clubs instead of sixteen.
This is what makes the vote held during the LNFP meeting particularly interesting. Seventeen clubs voted in favor of expanding to 20, including some that regularly speak of their financial difficulties. By contrast, FUS Rabat and Raja Casablanca voted against. Wydad Casablanca and Maghreb Fez abstained, while Renaissance Berkane did not attend the meeting. Broadly speaking, the clubs with the largest budgets are against the reform.
The vote therefore reveals a contradiction worth discussing: how can clubs demand more resources while supporting a format that, as things stand, would add four more beneficiaries?
A Pie to Be Divided Among Twenty
A significant part of the finances of many clubs still depends on television rights, federal funding and various subsidies. Yet at this stage, there is nothing to suggest that expanding from 16 to 20 clubs would automatically increase those resources.
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If the overall pot remains unchanged, the arithmetic is fairly simple. What is currently divided among sixteen clubs would have to be divided among twenty tomorrow. And unless the distribution mechanisms are revised, each club risks receiving a little less.
For the expansion to be financially neutral for the clubs already in the league, additional money would therefore have to be found first. More television revenue, new sponsors, better commercial exploitation of the championship, higher ticketing revenue or greater financial support. Ultimately, it matters little where that additional revenue comes from: it simply has to exist.
That is probably one of the elements missing from the debate today. The number of clubs is being discussed before the economic model that would accompany such an expansion has been clearly established.
Because expanding to 20 does not merely mean adding four more shares to the distribution of revenue. It also means adding matches.
From 240 to 380 Matches
With sixteen teams, the Botola features 240 matches per season. With twenty clubs, that figure would rise to 380. The difference is considerable: 140 additional matches. For each club, the season would expand from 30 to 38 matchdays. That means four additional away trips and four additional home games.
On paper, the four additional home fixtures may sound like good news. They offer more ticketing revenue, greater visibility for sponsors and additional commercial opportunities. But that assumes clubs can fill the stands and successfully monetize those matches.
An additional match does not, by its very nature, mean additional revenue. The team has to travel, sometimes stay overnight, the match has to be organized, security personnel mobilized, logistics handled and contractual bonuses paid. At league level, more matches would also have to be produced and broadcast. All of that comes at a cost.
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For clubs that regularly attract several thousand spectators and have structured commercial operations, four additional home matches could be worthwhile. For those whose stands remain largely empty, the calculation is far less straightforward. An additional matchday could even cost more than it generates.
This is why the 140 additional matches cannot automatically be presented as 140 opportunities to make more money. Everything depends on their commercial value.
The Financial Problems Will Not Disappear
Above all, this discussion is taking place in a league that was already experiencing financial difficulties long before anyone proposed a 20-club Botola.
Every season brings its share of disputes, transfer bans, unpaid or delayed wages and bonuses, and cash-flow problems. Some clubs are already operating on extremely tight margins. Adding eight matchdays to their season will obviously solve none of these problems.
That does not mean a 20-club Botola would be economically impossible. Twenty-team leagues operate elsewhere. But they are underpinned by revenues capable of supporting that format. That is where the discussion should begin.
How much would a 20-club Botola actually generate? How much would the additional 140 matches cost? What would the new value of the television rights be? Are there partners prepared to invest more? Would financial support for clubs increase? How much additional revenue would have to be generated to ensure that the current sixteen clubs lose nothing from the arrival of four new teams? Without answers to these questions, the debate remains incomplete.
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One may decide that twenty clubs are preferable to sixteen for sporting, territorial or social reasons. But a reform of this scale also needs funding. The number of matches will certainly increase. So will travel and organizational costs. Revenue, however, will not increase simply because four clubs have been added to the table.
Fortunately, the vote was not unanimous. That lack of consensus should be enough, at least for now, to close the file on a 20-club Botola and consign the reform to the shelf. That would probably not be bad news for Moroccan football, which has other priorities today: cleaning up club finances, strengthening governance, improving scheduling, developing revenue streams and consolidating professional structures. Before seeking to make the Botola bigger, perhaps it is time to make the one that already exists stronger.
