Let me just say that the idea of merging the small nations together is absolutely RIDICULOUS !!
It hasn't been officially announced, but everybody knows that it's happening. I don't know about other nations, but the most important thing that is keeping the users in my country (Iran) to keep playing is the nice little community that we have formed throughout the years. Many keep playing the game not because of the game itself, but because of the friends that they have made. As I said, I'm strictly talking about my nation, Iran. It is the friendly rivals and games that keep many in the game. Iran is not a small nation (I mean that geographically), but many of the managers actually meet each other in real life. I myself buy some products of the online store of one of my friends who has a team in the game. I'm saying all this to stress the importance of the community and to tell you that most of the pleasure we get is by interacting with friends. If small nations were to merge, this would be impossible. One of the thing that actually got me to sign up in the first place was that I saw my countries flag in the game. If I wanted to play with managers of some other nations, I would have bought the second team option and joined Utopia !! That's my first and most important point.
Secondly, many managers in my country, including myself, have planned the future of their team with regards to the way our nations is in BB. Some former top league champions have decided to lay low for a while as they are training their trainees, some are going all out for domination in their respective leagues, so merging the nation with other nations would definitely mess up what they have planned for their teams. We Iranians are extremely proud of our country and as small as we may be in BB, we have plans as community to improve our nation in many ways. Our national teams are an example of what we have planned and worked on for so long. We achieved a small portion of what we had in mind a couple of seasons ago as Iran NT became the champions of continental competition for the first time (this was made possible by the efforts of the amazing former B3 champion, Sahand, the manager of I Love Tehran). We are still working on different projects regarding our national teams, youth training, international competition in B3 as I am writing this.
Because of all that I stated above, merging the small nations, or at least my own nation with other countries will only lead to more users leaving the game. This people would be the more serious and more experienced managers such as the two time B3 champion, Misagh Alizadeh, the manager of Venomous Scorpions.
What I'm trying to say is that the idea is completely non-sense and I believe it will have a negative impact on the game.
Instead of merging small nations, why not work on better advertising so there is no need for small nations to merge in the first place !! If there is one of course ....