Agreed. I do however think the holders should be given a place. The rules state b) If the title-holder comes from an association entitled to more than one place in the UEFA Champions League and does not qualify for the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Cup through its domestic competitions, the lowest-ranked club of the association’s UEFA Champions League representatives is automatically transferred to the UEFA Cup. In this case, the national association of the title-holder is entitled to one additional place in the UEFA Cup. (why?) For the UEFA Cup If the UEFA Cup title-holder does not qualify for either the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Cup through its domestic competitions, its participation in the UEFA Cup will not be at the expense of the contingent of its association. That's just barmy, why have one rule for one tournament (that influences another tournament) and a contradicting rule for another (that is officiated by the same people)
No it means those already qualified for the UEFA Cup will not be demoted if Spurs are given a UEFA place, an extra place will be allocated. So basically they are saying, we cannot have any extra teams in the Champions League, but we are more than happy to to have more in our 'Lesser' tournament. Why is it good for one but not the other?
But Chelsea already have a Europa League place via the FA Cup, so wouldn't that go to Everton, who are the next team down in the league?
There are no extra places. Either Chelsea or Spurs will be in the CL, the other will be in EL. There is a clue as to how wrong the above is by the fact that it talks about the UEFA cup.
I see what you mean, no an extra place would be allocated only if Chelsea had not already qualified (essentially if the same thing thing could happen but it effected the UEFA Cup they would find an extra place)
Fair play ouch...I would want my team to win also...and would understand if someone had a prob with, I don't blame Chelsea...uefa's job to do their job
If they gave England 5 C.L spots due to us winning it, surely that would mean someone else would miss out on a space from a different country which wouldn't be fair to them either. They give England 4 spots but it's more important to have the defending champions back in than the team that finished fourth. It would be unfortunate for Spurs but can't see why they should get the place at the expense of a team from another country either. I guess an alternative solution would be to always have a space free in case the winners didn't qualify and if not, give it to the team with the highest co-efficient ranking in Europe who didn't qualify.
I can't disagree that the holders should always be allowed to defend their title. I suppose it's just annoying that they can't amend the rule to say, whatever number of teams that country has been allocated, PLUS the holders if they happen to be from that country and haven't qualified through their league position.
But there are only so many places and they are already all allocated to each participating country; so to give England an extra spot would mean taking one away from another country. Therefore the only options I can see is the current model or as I say above, always keeping a free spot in case this happens. What did they do when Liverpool won it in 05? England got 5 spots but not sure who missed out as a result.
Chelsea are outside of the places to qualify via the league so FA cup qualification would have to be past onto us because we would be swaping places in qualifying speak.
I believe it was just an extra team that had to play a qualifier instead of automatically going through.
I can't remember TBH. However, I'm sure that UEFA can find room for one more team, if the will is there. That way it would be fair to all. Nobody gives up a place, and the holders are guaranteed theirs.
In 05 Liverpool had to go right to the beginning of qualifying. Therefore more teams were in the qualifying rounds so the "loser" would have been a team that went out in qualifying rather than going straight through or by entering a round earlier than they might have.
First, thanks for the congratulations. I think all of us would have taken fourth at the start of the year. And if you would have told me, well, you'll get fourth, but not get a CL spot because Chelsea won the league I would have said...We're cursed. Cursed, I tell you! "If they gave England 5 C.L spots due to us winning it, surely that would mean someone else would miss out on a space from a different country which wouldn't be fair to them either." True enough, on the face of it. But the fairest thing would be, as others have pointed out, bring in an extra team. If they can't figure out how to do this, I'll take five minutes and figure it out. You can also make a case that it's even more unfair to take the spot of a team that finished above the CL winner. Put another way, if a league is strong enough it can win the CL with a team that can't make the CL places for next year, they deserve another CL spot--certainly next year and maybe permanently.
Firstly, I agree that the champions should be able to defend their title. That rule should apply to any sport, IMO. However, I believe that the prem needs another place for CL football. We have the best League in world football with the highest standard of football overall. Yes, there's Real, Barca, Inter, AC, Bayern etc etc abroad, but there is not the volume of "quality" teams in the other leagues across the world, when compared to the premiership. The Bundesliga should not get the same as the Prem, IMO. The quality of the league over all is not anywhere near close to the prem.
I suspect UEFA don't even like us having four places in the CL, there's no realistic chance we're going to get 5 IMHO. The rules are clear, we lose out if Chelsea win, it's another cruel twist of fate to add to the norovirus and Foster/Fulop sagas. Maybe if we're in the Europa we'll try a bit harder this time, maybe even win the thing. I'd honestly prefer that to a CL quarter final exit again.
With the disrespect that the Prem teams, particularly us, showed the Europa league this season it could be argued that the Prem deserves less places in Europe. Tho two Spanish finalists wanted that cup really badly. It was a great final with the losers in tears at the end. I strongly believe that the winners of the Europa League should automatically qualify for the Champions league for the following season.
