UEFA to introduce new 32-team competition from 2021

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Happy Blue said:

They should rename it then, Champions and losers league

They probably shouldn't call the it the champions league to be fair.  Maybe call the champions league the European cup, the Europa league the European shield and then this new competition the European plate something like that 

[Happy Blue]

9 minutes ago, Gunnersauraus said:

They probably shouldn't call the it the champions league to be fair.  Maybe call the champions league the European cup, the Europa league the European shield and then this new competition the European plate something like that 

This would be better

[Smiley Culture]

It’s happening then. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46421656

Not a fan of this at all. Just rewarding mediocrity by the sounds of it, which isn’t for me. 

I said it above but I’d have restructured the Champions League and Europa League, because the qualifying stages are quite pointless. We start qualifiers for both competitions in June and teams from Andorra, Liechtenstein and the like and without being disrespectful, they have no chance of getting to the group stages and I’d restructure it so there are less qualifiers and the qualifiers we do have are of a higher quality because the sides in it are of a higher quality. I’d give teams from the lesser nations their own competition against teams of a similar ranking. 

[CaaC (John)+]

Thought I would post this in here, if wrong then the Admin/Mods, please move or merge it if you must.  

Champions League: Format changes planned for 2024 set to be delayed or scrapped

The revolutionary changes to European football planned for 2024 are likely to either be delayed or scrapped.

Uefa was proposing a Champions League containing four groups of eight clubs, as opposed to the current eight groups of four, meaning 14 games, some of which could be played at weekends.

The proposals came after pressure from leagues below the "big five" - England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France.

However, after months of talks, no overall consensus has been reached.

Promotion and relegation from the Europa League and the new Europa League 2, a third club competition which starts in 2021, had also been suggested as a way of ensuring a rotation of clubs, to prevent the Champions League appearing to become a sealed competition.

Ajax chief executive Edwin van der Sar has been among the most vocal demanding change, pointing out the present qualification system could have led to his club having no European football at all after August, even though they came within seconds of getting to last season's Champions League final before Lucas Moura's dramatic injury-time goal for Tottenham in Amsterdam.

While the clubs remain committed to change, the likelihood is that anything implemented by 2024 will be much less radical than initially envisaged.

Ex-Netherlands goalkeeper Van der Sar was present in Geneva on Monday for the first day of a two-day meeting of Europe's leading clubs, where England's "big six" clubs - Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United - were also represented.

Sources have said resolving the Ajax "issue" is relatively straightforward and could be achieved by allowing all semi-finalists into the group phase and introducing a play-off for the fourth-placed teams in the two lowest-ranking leagues who get four automatic group phase slots - currently Italy and Germany.

A far greater obstacle to implementing the proposed changes is concern among the major leagues, including the Premier League, that if Uefa's plan results in greater television revenue for their competitions, it will come at the expense of their domestic competitions.

There is disagreement about this, but the view is widely held and puts clubs in those competitions at loggerheads with counterparts in the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium and Scotland, amongst others, where big-name clubs are restricted in their ability to progress because access to TV money from their own domestic competitions is strictly limited.

They feel unless action is taken quickly, the gap will end up being so wide, it will never be bridged.

Last season, the Premier League's bottom club, Huddersfield, earned £96.6m in TV money alone. In 2018, Scottish champions Celtic's overall income, including prize money from the Champions League, was £101.6m, a sum that was reduced markedly in 2019 because of their failure to qualify for the group stages of Europe's elite competition.

It is the lack of consensus which led to Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin cancelling the key tri-party discussions (involving Uefa, the leagues and the clubs) that were due to be held in Switzerland on Wednesday.

These talks have been put back indefinitely, with chances being that they may not be held until the end of the season.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49641315

[Mel81x+]

Seems to me like they are working on something they don't have to and overlooking something they really shouldn't be. In this case, the overlooked problem is TV rights and the money gained from it. You start to find solutions there and you might actually see far better competitiveness in the transfer market and perhaps more competitiveness across the board as well for European football. The problem with spreading it evenly is that its never been a choice for football and more for media conglomerates who, in a very underhanded way, control what games are shown and when they should be shown too. 

[Danny]

Champions League games on the weekend is a big no no, especially for Prem, La Liga and Juve/Bayern clubs who will make a lot of money on the weekend based on the strength of their leagues marketing or the marketing of them in their league

The likes of Ajax etc would probably happily play the odd weekend European game if it meant catching up with others.

The the comparisons from Ajax and Celtic to someone like Huddersfield are tired ones though. The Premier League was saturated for a long time because everyone has money and so the average players just had their wages and transfer fees upped whenever a Prem club came in for them. Huddersfield did not actually benefit from earning that £90m alone 

[Smiley Culture]

Not surprising news, really. I couldn’t envisage an idea that suited all parties and worked well. 

There’s going to be too much opposition by non-conglomerate clubs should teams try and breakaway altogether and I’m not sure how you can extend a tournament and play games at weekends without national FA’s and their elite leagues getting the hump.