EL might be scrapped and 64 teams into the CL in a year or two though the top 7 English teams may qualify, that still is no guarantee P.S the sauce http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20523405
They'll do it for about 5 years and then someone in uefa will say "how about we do 3 competitions, one for the domestic champions, one for the domestic cup winners and another the leagues also rans" I should go and work at UEFA
Yeah I read this & found it Bizarre but logical at the same time. On one hand the premier European competition is now badly named as the "Champions League" even more so under these proposals but from a money making point of view from ticket sales to sponsorship deals it might be more attractive having more of the "names" (yes such as us) playing in the elite competition rather than a secondary one. Before any opposition fans berate me I'm talking purely from the perspective of the guys making money: UEFA. I would guess they could charge a much higher sponsorship/advertising fee for having more named brands like us or Spurs (since we were 8th last year) in their top comp than a separate less attractive deal for a secondary competition that some of those 2nd tier clubs even sacrifice for the sake of their domestic competitions. However: it just shows where UEFA's priorities lie. They would dilute their "elite" comp & sacrifice a competition that gives smaller clubs a taste of Europe/greater market profile. Football not really the winner there then eh? UEFA want to be in the position of controlling a European super league if its going to happen. Ironically if this proposal is a success it brings the likelihood of such a league replacing top tier domestic leagues much closer.
Sure the seeding is enough of a helping hand for the big teams, also the piss was taken out of us in the OP so shouldn't bother taking your finger out of your cat's bum to type as such
Yep, you don't get in unless you have a real CL trophy in your cabinet and not dodgy chinese plastic knockoffs like at OT. Rooney eats his cheerios out of the last one they won
Must be hard to raise cash for the EL compared to the CL. Its better to dump all non champions into the EL and league the CL for champions only if one were to be logical..
Cant see it happening. All this talk of changing the CL or making a European Super League doesnt appeal to me. I also think they just want to make more money. I like the CL and EL as they are. Except Liverpool should be in the CL.
for me this is a bit pointless. if you look critically at the seedings in the champions league you see the top seeds go through the groups 95% of the time. in other words the groups are only for money making its really just a european super league under uefa control. the europa hasn't got any prize moeny, no good tv moeny and the only guys making cash are those dropping out of the cl groups into it. we don't take it seriously as a nation as we field rubbish second strings and scrape by or not..... all in all if they make a european super league i'd see the "top" teams seeded and still going through easily so it'd be very boring and pointless until the real games start i nthe final 8 as per usual.
Not sure I agree with that - remember than the same number of clubs would go into the expanded CL as go into the current CL and EL combined (excluding qualifying). If anything, I think the smaller clubs would be happier with a chance of being drawn in a group against Barca or Real, with associated TV bounty, than getting a group with, say, Anzhi and Braga Assuming the format would be 16 groups of four teams each and then knockout that would also give smaller clubs a better chance of getting out of their CL group and into the knockout stages where anything could happen. It would make it much less likely you'd have clubs like Utd and City crashing out in the group stage, but the extra knock out round would give them more chances of slipping up once out of the group. Also, I think having all seven English qualifiers go into the CL would be better for the game here, cos of the amount of diversity you would get. Whilst the CL has often be dominated by a "big four" of Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool / City, places 5-7 are often much more open. Over the past eight years instead of just Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, City and Spurs qualifying you'd also have had Blackburn, Newcastle, Everton, Bolton, Villa and Fulham in the top comp. Surely that would be good for football? You also don't necessarily have to lose the second competition - you could have 16 groups of four teams with the top two going into the CL and the bottom two into an EL successor, that way all qualifying clubs get to stay in Europe that much longer and you still have two trophies to compete for.
The revenue distribution would also be fairer - the smallest payment to CL clubs last year was around £7 million for clubs who lost all their group games, whereas Atletico only got £8.5 million for winning the Europa, and most clubs ended up with next to nothing. Most of the CL money gets distributed in the group stages, so the more clubs in the pool at that stage the fairer the money is split.
See... this is getting closer to something I've always wanted. A UEFA wide FA cup. Higher ranked get to come in at a later stage (to prevent toooo many games in a season) and early rounds are regional to prevent Loch Haggis having to travel to Dynamo Bumfucadog in early stages. Not until more money is involved in later stages does travel get longer.
I don't like this idea. It would take the magic out of competing in the Champions League. However, from a financial point of view, it would be brilliant. The money you make from playing in the Champions League should enable teams like Newcastle, Everton and West Brom (currently) to compete at a higher level every season.
I realise the pool of cash would get bigger (UEFA money and extra advertising/sponsorship revenue etc) but splitting it between more clubs could mean less for the top teams in the group. That would be hard to sell to the bigger clubs. I guess if UEFA think they can keep the top clubs earning at least as much then they must be confident of there being even more ridiculously big sponsorship deals going forward. I like the idea you mentioned about a two tier competition though (bottom two go into a restyled UEFA) especially if the winners of that got back into the CL qualifiers the season after. People might say this is a way to introduce a European super league through the back door (painful) but I'm not so sure. I think this might be as far as they can push it at the moment because they know even the biggest European clubs still value their domestic leagues, for now at least. What I do wonder about though is whether this would expand our European quota as much as some are suggesting (top 6 or 7 go into CL). I suspect this could be a "vote getter" for Platini or Blatts (or both). The "one member one vote" scenario means they could well be offering around extra CL places across the continent to curry favour with all the Euro nations (see the extra Euro international places that will be on offer next time round as further proof....allegedly ). I'm not so sure it'll be the bigger (footballing) nations getting all the extra places....until after the next round of UEFA/FIFA elections anyway Cynical? Who me?
