Do We Need a New Point System in Professional Football Leagues?

This paper analyses the impact of point systems on the degree of competition in professional football leagues via the annual coefficient of variation (CV) of end-of-season points. The past, existing and some alternative point systems were applied to a hypothetical football league consisting of eighteen teams to find out changes in the CV value, which is assumed to measure the degree of football competition statistically. On the basis of the computed CV values, it appears that the most competitive football league takes place statistically in which winner gets three, loser one and draws two points.