This investigation compared the competitive demands, as quantified by game distribution and density characteristics, of the major British and European football leagues. Pairwise comparisons between leagues revealed that English Championship teams played more total games, two game weeks and had a higher game density than teams from all other leagues analysed: the English Premier League, Scottish Premiership, Scottish Championship, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1 and the Dutch Eredivisie (ES, moderate to very large). English Premier League teams played more two game weeks (ES, trivial to large) and Spanish La Liga teams had a higher game density (ES, trivial to moderate) in comparison to all leagues other than the English Championship. Dutch Eredivisie (ES, moderate to very large), German Bundesliga (ES, moderate to very large) and Italian Serie-A (ES, small to large) teams played the lowest total number of games. Dutch Eredivisie (ES, moderate to very large), Scottish Championship (ES, small to very large) and German Bundesliga (ES, trivial to very large) teams played the lowest number of two game weeks. Dutch Eredivisie (ES, moderate to very large), German Bundesliga (ES, small to very large) and Scottish Premiership (ES, small to very large) teams had the lowest game density. Competitive demands vary between the major British and European football leagues. Owing to high game densities, maintaining appropriate player workloads might be particularly challenging for teams competing in leagues with greater game distribution and density demands (English Championship, English Premier League, and the Spanish La Liga). Squad rotation might be warranted in these leagues to mitigate risk of player injury, illness, and temporal declines in performance.
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