The cartel of Europe

[Bazly]

Quote

Europe's top clubs want to reshape the Champions League within the next three months.
 

The European Club Association board have set up a new working group to outline a fresh round of detailed proposals for the biggest shake-up since the the competition replaced the European Cup.
 

AC Milan chief executive Ivan Gazidis is chairman of the working group and there is a target of agreeing the new-look format by March in the hope of taking it to UEFA to get it rubber-stamped and introduced by 2024.
 

One proposal is to have a league of 32 teams. Each team would be seeded and get 10 games and reaching the last 16 would also guarantee qualification for Champions League the following season.
 

It could be bad news for clubs like Leicester as the shake-up could mean finishing in the top four would no longer guarantee a place as the elite clubs want to safeguard themselves.

 

[OadbyBlue]

If this happens it is the day I lose interest in top level football 

[Xen]

What a surprise.

 

In a year where a lot of the traditional big sides are struggling domestically (Utd, Spurs, Arsenal, Bayern, Atletico, Ac Milan), this rears it's head again. They can't handle that they might start slipping away longer-term and they're going to keep on pushing for this. Owners clearly want to keep their chief source of income for as long as possible...

[lifted*fox]

there's a surprise. 

 

rich men making things exactly the way they want them to keep making themselves richer. 

 

world is gone.

 

 

[Raw Dykes]

Disgusting.

[Bazly]

Presumably this format would mean that in years like this when all 4 English clubs make the last 16 there would be no new entrants the following year, even if there were a league winner outside of the fantastic 4. 

[yorkie1999]

16 minutes ago, OadbyBlue said:

If this happens it is the day I lose interest in top level football 

Why? we'd win the league every year plus, after 2 or 3 years when the supporters have got fed up with chasing round europe the English clubs will come back anyway

[StanSP]

'as the elite clubs want to safeguard themselves' is a sickening sentence to read when you think about it.

[Babylon]

If they change the format, they might as well all **** off and start a Euro league. Otherwise what is the sodding point.

[joachim1965]

14 minutes ago, StanSP said:

'as the elite clubs want to safeguard themselves' is a sickening sentence to read when you think about it.

Absolutely, it shouldn't be about so called "elite" clubs, if you do well enough domestically then you qualify, not a bad system.

[Stadt]

AC Milan would maybe be a bit less dogwank if they spent more time sorting out themselves than acting like a 13 year old lad chatting shit about some fantasy tournament. Atalanta have brought knockout CL football to the San Siro in about 6 months as opposed to the 5 years those decrepit nonces have been waiting. Grow up Gazidis you strap on 

[Tielemans63]

Weird that the owner of AC Milan would be pushing for this....

[UniFox21]

Genuinely if that happens football at any other level may as well just pack in

[HighPeakFox]

If ever you needed a timely allegory for unmitigated greed and self-interest, this is the day.

[MC Prussian]

Just start our own European competition. Problem solved.

[Dr The Singh]

I hope they have a referendum

[Hammo]

Heaven help us.

 

I’m sure even the fans of those ‘top’ clubs would reject a ‘closed shop’ project like that.

 

 

[HybridFox]

Stinks of brown envelopes

[sm1]

It's the old European Super League idea that's been around for 20+yrs. They're not going to stop until they get some major changes. 

[car1os]

Good news is that we've got 3 years grace to be a "big team" and become a permanent fixture.  Brendan, make it so...

 

Bad news is that it will completely wreck any thought of competition in domestic football, harm the "Premier League" brand, and from my perspective would take away a lot of the magic of football.  I really enjoyed watching Ajax perform the way they did in the CL last year, not to mention us getting to the quarter finals in 2016-17!  Hopefully enough teams and national associations will oppose this...

[car1os]

40 minutes ago, Dr The Singh said:

I hope they have a referendum

You know which side the 48% will lie on, don't you?!

[st albans fox]

But they will sell it as trying to protect clubs like us ..... saying that if this was in place we would have stayed in the following seasons competition ...... that smaller clubs struggle to qualify for two consecutive seasons as squad not big enough to do well in the CL and finish in top 4

[Dahnsouff]

1 hour ago, Dr The Singh said:

I hope they have a referendum

CL-Exit? 

[Fox92]

Went to Villa last week and saw the statue of McGregor. Wonder what he'd make of all this shit constantly cropping up.

 

Top flight football will be gone if this ever happened but I don't think it would. 

[Tom12345]

It stints.

 

Having said that, I think there is a good point in there. If you reach the Finals, or even Semi-finals, it is quite an achievement and burden given the heavy schedule these days and I agree that you should be rewarded with some preference in terms of entering the comp the following year. Otherwise the danger is that teams prioritise the domestic leagues too much because there is too much risk to try to do well in Europe as it may affect domestic results from playing too many games (including tiredness; injuries; etc).  Just look at Liverpool’s schedule.

 

I do think therefore there is some merit to it. It just needs to be balanced.