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CosbehFox

Champions League Format Change - death knell for football?

By CosbehFox, in General Football and Sport

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CosbehFox

CosbehFox

Posted
Posted (edited)

Journalists have thankfully got their hands on the proposed format for European Football from 2024. 

In essence it's extremely scary, will marginalise the domestic leagues and will create a further balance. 

We'd be in the position where clubs just have to win few games every year in Europe to retain their position within the Champions League. 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/sports/champions-league-europe-restructuring.html

 

 

 

 

Edited by Cardiff_Fox
davieG

davieG

Posted
Posted

It was the rarest of feats in modern European soccer: Ajax Amsterdam, a proud club from the Dutch league, battling its way past giants like Real Madrid and Juventus to the cusp of a place in the Champions League final.

Ajax’s journey, which began in the summer qualifying rounds and was ended by an injury-time goal in the semifinals on Wednesday, was the kind of puncher’s chance that every small club dreams of in the Champions League. But it is unlikely to be repeated if concrete proposals for the future of European soccer drawn up by the continent’s governing body and its richest clubs come to fruition.

While officials from the continent’s biggest clubs and UEFA, which governs the sport in Europe and organizes the Champions League, have suggested that there is a suite of options on the table, documents obtained by The New York Times outline only one developed plan. If approved, it would calcify the Champions League into a competition dominated by a small group of elite clubs and leave as few as four of its 32 places available for teams from leagues in Europe’s 55 national federations.

Discussions over the proposed changes have proved divisive, pitting national leagues — led by England’s Premier League, La Liga in Spain and competitions in Germany and France — against some of their own members. But the documents reviewed by The Times, the product of a project that appears to have been in the works for more than a year, present a more formidable threat to domestic leagues and most clubs than previously known.

If approved, they would result in a Champions League that could render national competitions nearly irrelevant, impose significant barriers to entry for teams outside the game’s current elite and deepen the divide between the two dozen richest clubs and the hundreds of others that make up the bulk of the European game.

Officials from the domestic leagues were shown the proposal for restructured European competitions this week. The new tournaments would, starting in 2024, allow the top 24 teams in a 32-team Champions League to qualify automatically for the next season’s event, effectively guaranteeing them annual participation and tens of millions of dollars more in broadcasting revenue than their domestic rivals would receive. Those rivals would most likely be unable to match the rich clubs’ spending power and would find it prohibitively difficult to play their way into the Champions League on the field.

The biggest clubs, notably those from Spain and Italy, are pushing the proposals the hardest, according to people familiar with the discussions. They argue that the changes are needed to provide more fiscal certainty year after year.

UEFA has been in talks about proposals for months with the European Club Association, a group that is led by Juventus’s chairman, Andrea Agnelli, and is driving the campaign for an elite competition. UEFA belatedly met with representatives of Europe’s leagues on Wednesday. After the meeting, Aleksander Ceferin, the UEFA president, said, “At the moment we have only ideas and opinions.”

Some leaders of European leagues who were present did not accept that description, pointing out that only one proposal had been presented — a formal one with charts and graphics that was created without input from the leagues. The Spanish league president Javier Tebas, a vocal critic of the plans, said after the meeting that the plans were so developed that there appeared to be little room for negotiation.


“We cannot accept that these are just plans and proposals for an open discussion with stakeholders about the future of professional football,” Tebas told The Times. “In reality, we were presented with a concrete project developed by UEFA in full cooperation with a small group of rich and powerful European clubs to reform European club competitions after 2024 in a format that could destroy domestic competitions and the sporting and financial sustainability of the vast majority of clubs in Europe.

“We are open for a constructive dialogue to reform European football together with other stakeholders, but if this is the project on the table, then the margins for negotiations are very limited.”

While the Champions League’s main competition will continue to be the 32-team event it is today, UEFA envisages substantial changes to its format to ensure a longer group stage in which teams would play in four groups of eight, with the top four teams qualifying for the knockout stages. Such a setup would create dozens more matchups of elite clubs to sell to broadcasters, with some perhaps on weekend dates that are traditionally reserved for domestic league play.

Champions from lower-profile leagues like those in the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and most of Eastern Europe, as well as elite-league clubs outside the top four or five spots in their domestic competitions, would be relegated to a 32-team second-tier competition and to a third division with 64 teams. Teams would be eligible to be promoted and relegated among the three divisions, but the financial resources available to those at the top could create a competitive advantage that might secure their places in the Champions League for the foreseeable future. Only four of the 32 places would be reserved for incoming clubs each season.

Leaders of Europe’s domestic leagues fear the changes could reduce their competitions to fourth-tier afterthoughts behind the three European competitions, while small and medium-size clubs have expressed concern that their fans would no longer have the chance to dream of even competing against the continent’s biggest clubs for Europe’s biggest prizes.

“The objective of football is to give happiness to fans, and to give happiness is to have a chance of winning,” said Bernard Caiazzo, the owner of the French team St.-Étienne.

The uncertainty has already prevented some teams from securing outside investment, according to Caiazzo. His club, once a power in European competition, had been in talks with minority investors who have now cooled on buying a minority stake, he said.


St.-Étienne has a storied past, having won 10 French championships during a heyday that ended with its last league title in 1981. In recent years, it has found itself among the also-rans in France’s Ligue 1, as first Lyon and now Paris St.-Germain — a club whose rise has been financed by seemingly endless infusions of cash from its Qatari owners — have dominated French soccer.

He said he worried that the proposed Champions League overhaul would leave new owners with no reason to invest.

“Of course, these investors, new investors, will consider if we close the system that of course they could suddenly be outside,” Caiazzo said.

Jattdogg

Jattdogg

Posted
Posted

Its time to get ballsy with these clubs and uefa.

 

No club is bigger than the country they represent. Its an absolute disgrace if they think this is the way forward. 

 

All clubs across europe (not part of these big club discussions) should quit uefa and form a new body. I would also encourage fans from these teams to boycott their own teams and say no. I recognize that could be tough but surely a proud englishman would want to stick up for the EPL and english football league in general.  I get playing against barca more often could be enticing  or 'better' than playing against brighton but big fish will soon be small fish. They wont be top 6 anymore in a big league full of big clubs. Get used to being the huddersfield of this league.

 

Im just angry so take my comments/ideas above with a grain of salt. Just tired of this im better than you attitude from these clubs. FOAD. 

 

 

Manwell Pablo

Manwell Pablo

Posted
Posted (edited)

It'll happen, maybe not by 2024 but slowly but surely they will grind us down into accepting it. Obviously it's disgusting but commercialism rules all.

 

I am just pleased I've seen us play in Europe while the format was not a complete farce.

Edited by Manwell Pablo
Nalis

Nalis

Posted
Posted

Wouldnt surprise me to see a 32 team franchise style league in Europe with conferences, etc, bit like NFL.

 

Sure, they would say there are 'spaces' for all but the reality would be seeing a couple of token spaces whereby the gulf in money/resources between the establishment and the rest is so great that they might as well not even be there.

fuchsntf

fuchsntf

Posted
Posted
23 hours ago, Voll Blau said:

Absolute joke. No-one in their right mind could be in favour of this.

Yehhh!!   But we are not dealing with anybody in their right mind...!!

 

Funny enough I was discussing this topic ,with 3 Spurs fans,a group of mixed scousers,4 Chelsea + 6 Arsenal fans and a mix of BVB/Bayern fans..

before the CL semi finals....and it wasn't the 1st time it had came up.....( Shame it was the last time we will be together)

Ok 25-40 fans are no points for a proof of any great poll,or swings on a votemeter,but not one of them  wanted to try "any" new  format of this 'Europa club league 

We have it anyway...!!!  2 competitions...The CL & the one for also rans..!!  In fact there was an high % that agreed..cut down on the CL places. Just the top Two.

then Extend the EL with   teams finishing 3-6...(qualification k.o.rounds but for all)...Then a league system. Also if possible have regional leagues,so the fans

don't have too far to travel....

 

 

Crinklyfox

Crinklyfox

Posted
Posted

Fans of every club dream of their club achieving the top honours in football.  By winning the PL City have proven that it need not just be a dream.

 

This proposal dashes the hopes of the many to fill the pockets of the few.  It should be opposed by all who love the game, crushed and consigned to the dustbin of history.  And UEFA should hang their heads in shame.

Dan

Dan

Posted
Posted
On 10/05/2019 at 10:47, Jattdogg said:

Its time to get ballsy with these clubs and uefa.

 

No club is bigger than the country they represent. Its an absolute disgrace if they think this is the way forward. 

 

All clubs across europe (not part of these big club discussions) should quit uefa and form a new body. I would also encourage fans from these teams to boycott their own teams and say no. I recognize that could be tough but surely a proud englishman would want to stick up for the EPL and english football league in general.  I get playing against barca more often could be enticing  or 'better' than playing against brighton but big fish will soon be small fish. They wont be top 6 anymore in a big league full of big clubs. Get used to being the huddersfield of this league.

 

Im just angry so take my comments/ideas above with a grain of salt. Just tired of this im better than you attitude from these clubs. FOAD. 

 

 

The problem is if you do it year in, year out it would quickly get boring. You've already got the Barca and PSG fanboys bored of playing each other. This is only going to increase shit like this.

 

It's an inevitability really. For me it's just how long we can preserve an acceptable format - you could argue really things have already gone too far. Half of the group stages being allocated to just four leagues is pretty farcical.

Dan

Dan

Posted
Posted
On 10/05/2019 at 17:32, Corky said:

And yet what captivates people, or neutrals, the most? The idea of somebody different doing well.

Monaco & PSG the example I always use. PSG the side that all the super leagues back are still yet to turn out a side more entertaining than Monaco of two years ago who won't have a sniff.

  • 4 weeks later...

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