By Nick Harris
SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year
14 February 2012
Rangers, giants of Scottish football for almost as long as the game has been played there, have entered financial administration as a result of an outstanding tax case.
A much-quoted statistic over the past 24 hours is that Rangers have won more league titles than any football club in the world, and indeed they have – their staggering tally is 54 Scottish titles.
But how does this compare to other dominant forces within individual leagues in the world game? Find out below.
We’ve looked at every significant football league in the world, namely all those leagues in countries ranked within Fifa’s current top 100, as well as some others, and found the clubs with the most titles in each. The only other proviso for a league’s inclusion was it must have had 40 completed seasons.
The full list is in the graphic below.
In second place after Rangers’ total of 54 is Linfield, with 50 titles in Northern Ireland, followed by Penarol with 46 titles in Uruguay.
England’s most frequent title winners Manchester United have a mere 19 titles, bettered by the No1 title-winners in 33 other countries.
Rangers are not the most dominant title winner within a country, despite winning 54 of the 114 Scottish titles in history (47.4 per cent of the titles).
That honour goes to Al Ahly of Egypt with 36 titles from 54 (66. 7 per cent), followed by Muharraq of Bahrain (32 titles from 55, or 58.2 per cent), followed by Al-Faisaly of Jordan (31 titles of 59, 52.5 per cent), followed by Olympiacos of Greece (50.7 per cent), Djoliba AC of Mali (47.7 per cent) and then Rangers.
The most ‘dominant duo’ in world football, perhaps contrary to some people’s expectations, are not Rangers and Celtic in Scotland, although they have won 96 of Scotland’s 114 titles (or 84.2 per cent) between them.
More dominant are Al Ahly and Zamalek of Egypt, who have won 47 of Egypt’s 54 titles together (or 87 per cent), while Djoliba and Stade Malien have together won 38 of Mali’s 44 titles (86.4 per cent).
England’s two most dominant teams, United (19 titles) and Liverpool (18) have won a mere 33 per cent of England’s 112 titles between them.
The three countries with the most different title winners all fall within a small section of Europe. The Netherlands, Germany and France have each had 29 different title winners, respectively in 122, 99 and 97 completed seasons.
England, Romania and Mexico have all had 23 different title winners.
Scotland has had 11, with Rangers winning most. Quite possibly they won’t be winning another for a year or two.
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