UEFA is obviously keen to change the present set up of Champions League and Europa League. We know the arguments for and against the present set up, we will no doubt continue with that debate for a very long time, but for the moment let's put that aside. Imagine you have the chance to reorganise the whole thing. Starting from scratch what would your Europe wide competition be? My plan: Europe is a big place, travelling from one end to the other for an often very uneven contest is draining on a clubs players and resources for sometimes little in the way of true competition. The English football league in earlier times was divided for the smaller clubs into regions. We had Third Division North and Third Division South for example. When travelling was more difficult it avoided a club like, say Bournemouth having to travel to somewhere like Doncaster for a game. Why not divide Europe into regions for a Cup competition! e.g. say East, West, North and South. Teams in each region would qualify from their respective league and play teams in their region. The top say 4 from North would then play the top four from the West and East would play South the top four from each would then play each other until you reached the final. Numbers qualifying would need to be fine tuned but that's the gist. Travelling cut down for all but the winners (who will be probably be richer anyway) more involvement from fans who could support their regions teams not just their own clubs. The final stages of such a competition would be supported by the whole of Europe as South met East and so on. So what would you like to see, what kind of tournament would you set up? One competition or more? Over to you!
One drawback of that is once the regions are defined, I think you might find the best teams appearing every year as they do now. South Europe for example will always be topped by Barca and Madrid. Look at this year in City's group, a big gun had to fall. Lessening the pool of top opponents at a group stage, would favour the better teams I think.
Surely that would apply in whatever format and anyway the best teams should win it shouldn't they? The giantkillers would still appear from time to time.
I don't see a problem with the two comps, dropping the CL failures joining the EL creating more fixtures is what the problem is. Raising the money involved more proportionally would go a long way too, say half. It would be fairly straightforward for Uefa to re-jig the figures. UEFA Europa League 2010/11 season were as follows 1st qualifying round: €90,000 2nd qualifying round: €90,000 3rd qualifying round: €90,000 Playoffs: €90,000 Group stage: €640,000 For each match in group stage: €60,000 Group match victory: €140,000 Group match draw: €70,000 Round of 32: €200,000 Round of 16: €300,000 Quarter-finals: €400,000 Semi-finals: €700,000 Losing Finalist: €2,000,000 Winning the Final: €3,000,000 Champions League Playoffs: €2,100,000 Group stage: €3,900,000 For each match in group stage: €550,000 Group match victory: €800,000 Group match draw: €400,000 Round of 16: €3,000,000 Quarter-finals: €3,300,000 Semi-finals: €4,200,000 Losing finalist: €5,600,000 Winning the Final: €9,000,000 http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jul/13/chelsea-prize-money-champions-league Hows this for a kick in the balls! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...play-rules-as-Uefa-withholds-prize-money.html
Group stages make it easier for the biggest teams to go through, as does seeding. Ditch them both and also bring in a simplified FFP that doesn't have 100 pages of exceptions and loopholes for clubs to use. None of those would ever happen though so I guess there's no point worrying about it, let them bastardise it how they want and hope we're won of the elite few that can benefit from the changes.
I think you'll find that a lot of people will call for a return to the old format. I used to enjoy the Cup Winners Cup, for a start, as it seemed to throw up some real wildcards and quite a few flair sides.
We did. Your results were out of our hands. Not bitter or anything, just clearing that up. We've mostly all moved on from it, these things happen in football.
That's not true though is it? 4th place in the Premier League is entered into the CL best placed play off, except for when the Champions League winner is a Premier League side that has not earnt a qualifying place through league position. What part of the exception was up to us?
So far your posts have fallen way below the standard we expect on the Spurs page. If you wish to continue young Sean you will have to seriously improve to something approaching the level required. Should you chose not to, or are unable to, and wish to return to your own board where the level of comment is similar to your present standard we will fully understand.
It was enough - UEFA tried to hide behind some ruling saying that five teams from one league couldn't compete in the competition, ignoring the fact that it happened in the 2005-6 competition (Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal, Everton and Liverpool all took part, therefore there was precident) We did enough, UEFA didn't. Saying otherwise makes you look either ill-informed, a complete dickhead, or an ill-informed dickhead.
Looks like Chelsea have wasted the place in the competition, anyway. City have blown it, too. Mancini and Di Matteo out! Oh, wait...
