LONDON (Reuters) -The CEO of the fast-growing Baller League says its style of fast-paced, small-sided, digital-oriented football is a return to the sport's grassroots not a betrayal of them.

"We are the old era of football," Baller League boss Felix Starck told Reuters, saying his organisation's format harks back to the exuberance of kids playing with cones on streets.

Critics say the Baller League, along with the similar Kings League, are a gimmicky distortion of the traditional 90-minute game, adding new rules and mixing online personalities with ex-professional players in teams.

But Starck, in an interview with Reuters this week, said that football had been transformed into a “product” and was therefore in need of a return to the "most-played sport in the world, which is small-sided football".

The entrepreneur, whose Baller League began in Germany in 2024, hopes a new governing body will emerge for the format to ensure quality as well as entertainment.

The Baller League expanded to the UK this year and wrapped up its first season last month, with online influencer Sharky coaching his SDC team to victory in a competition streamed by more than 1 million viewers on YouTube.

The Baller League will also set up goalposts in the U.S. this year where, Starck said, "Football never kicked off” compared to traditional American sports.

Starck said Spain was another logical future market, even though it is also the home of the Kings League, founded by Spanish international Gerard Pique.

'NOT AN EXPANSION RACE'

But, the Baller League boss cautioned, “This is not an expansion race ... We go to a country if we think it's going to be profitable and not just to go for expanding reasons.

"Hype is the easiest thing to create but you have no sustainability ... longevity."

Starck said the Baller League was more authentically sport-focused whereas other formats had "goofy Mario Kart rules". Though the Baller League has marketed itself as a "new era of football", the CEO said actually it also embodied the "old era".

"We're trying to build a governing body around the most played sport in the world and give it some respect that it deserves and not have a president that never kicked the ball in his life take a penalty for no reason," he said, referring to a Kings League rule that allows club presidents to take penalties.

"I don’t believe we’re building the same thing ... We should entertain on the pitch with the sport. And respect where the sport came from and how it evolved."

(Reporting by Streisand Neto; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)