I think the biggest issue in clubs mind is their games are forced to 3pm on a sunday and are then automatically excluded from BT sport slots and thats super sunday for sky and they want the top 4 if they can get them. Im sure its more oh i end up not on tv so i lose more in terms of english tv moeny than i gain out of bloody europa. for that reason i would say that the whole thing should be relooked at. I would actually say to eufa.. your next revision for this comp.. rotate the CL and europa games around the three mid week slots. put some cl rounds on a Thursday and put some Europa on a Wednesday or better yet admit nobody gives a **** about who comes to the ground and put the games on at 6:30pm for Europa Wednesday and then the next game in CL on at 8:30pm etc... Over in spain they'd not give a flying f the games start at 9pm. they do it all the time domestivally. I think england needs two things. 1. a winter break 2. tv deal should break up sundays into 3 slows like a saturday... that would create more football on tv and stop the whining.
Sevilla only get to go straight into the group stage because both CL finalists are already in next years. This thing gets more complicated every time they change it ...
That will most likely be the case every year. I know it happens occassionally where one of the finalists (or even the winner) dont qualify via the league, like ourselves and Liverpool. But it only happens maybe once a decade.
I'm confused every year as to who qualifies for what and how many league places it drops down to etc. Also your earlier comment - 'straight into group stage, yes, - top seeded, no - confused me as well because it looked like you were saying you thought it was alright that EL winner went straight into groups, when it's not always the case.
It may not be the case all the time, but what I meant was, I have no problem with it. And besides, if the criteria for the EL winner going straight to groups is that both the previous years finalists qualified for the CL via their league, it will happen far more often than not.
Not sure where you've got that from but the announcement that the EL would get CL football also said it would automatically be straight to the group stage too. Doesn't matter what happens elsewhere.
ahem ..... http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/news/newsid=2249541.html scroll down to Key Points - it's the first point. This explains it too - http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/newsid=2215121.html
Just reading through those links and had Chelsea/Arsenal won the CL and Everton the EL, for example - 4th place in the league this year would have gone into the EL - lucky utd ...
Again, that's not what they said on announcement. They said a club winning the CL or EL but finishing outside the top four would have seen a fifth CL place granted. However, if both occurred then fourth in the league would only get a EL spot.
That maybe what I meant Chelsea/Arsenal was the wrong example - if we'd have won the CL, the rest applies
