Do you agree with ad’s criteria of size of fan base and success at the senior men’s level? If so, I’d like to see some proper quantification so we can objectively decide who is a major footballing nation.
Broadly - it, of course, isn't an exact science - but factors you'd want to include would be:
1. Average crowd sizes for club games in their top league and lower leagues
2. Track record of top club sides in major international club competitions, e.g. Champions league
3. International reach of club football - e.g. value of rights to show games outside of that country
4. Track record of the national team of that country in qualifying for/reaching latter stages/winning major international tournaments and in international rankings.
And you'd involve some blender quotient that wouldn't suggest that failure of a national side to qualify for one tournament would drop them from tier, unless the other aspects also nose dived at the same time.
So in European terms top tier countries would be England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France. Thereafter countries such as Portugal, Netherlands and so on.
In South America, Brazil and Argentina in top tier.
