The European League of Football (ELF) may be history. After several breakaway teams, including the first ELF champion in 2021, Frankfurt Galaxy, had recently announced that they had agreed on a shared future with the new ELF management, the final break has now followed.
This Thursday, six former ELF teams that have joined forces to form the European Football Alliance (EFA) announced that they no longer wanted to work with the ELF on the plans for a football season as the top European league starting in early summer.
Rather, the EFA terminated the “decided cooperation” because in the joint discussions it became clear that the ELF could not meet the “standards for financial stability and transparency” recommended by the EFA. According to FAZ information, this is mainly due to the withdrawal of a large investor who had previously promised to support the ELF.
What role do the allegations against the Karajica brothers play?
The extent to which the decisions are related to the investigations by the public prosecutor’s office in Klagenfurt, Austria, against the long-standing managing director and main shareholder of the ELF, Zeljko Karajica, and his brother Tomislav, due to financial inconsistencies surrounding the Austria Klagenfurt football club, initially remained open. The Karajica brothers, who have been or are involved with the Austrian second division club in recent years, have so far rejected all allegations.
According to a written statement from the EFA, they are confident that the development of their own, independent league, which has already been initiated, will be pushed forward based on the model of the top US league, the National Football League (NFL). However, this undertaking seems rather unrealistic given the short time remaining until the traditionally announced start of the European football season at the end of May or beginning of June. This makes the immediate future of the Frankfurt Galaxy, Paris Musketeers, Prague Lions, Nordic Storm, Madrid Bravos and Raiders Tirol teams more uncertain than ever.
From the Galaxy’s perspective, it would also be conceivable to switch to the American Football League Europe (AFLE), which was recently launched as a rival league by former ELF teams around Rhein Fire. This step seems equally unlikely due to the wishes repeatedly expressed in Frankfurt for economic co-determination and greater financial participation, which will not be present in this form in the AFLE.
In addition, Frankfurt Galaxy – in contrast to most other former ELF teams – had not yet communicated a single personnel decision for 2026 as of this Thursday.
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