Despite mounting confusion over the future of European football amid accelerating plans for the European Super League, UEFA have confirmed their plans to revamp the Champions League from 2024-25.
UEFA revealed earlier this year their desire to shake-up Europe's premier club competition and exactly how they plan to do that has now been revealed.
The shake-up would see the total number of teams swell from 32 to 36 and the traditional group stage format is to be abolished.
In its place a single league stage, which includes all 36 participating teams, would be devised which would see every team guaranteed 10 'league stage' matches.
Five of those matches would be at home and the other five would be away from home.
The top eight sides from that 'league stage' format would progress to the knockout stage automatically.
Those remaining sides running from ninth to 24th would then enter two-legged eliminators to determine the other eight teams into the last-16.
I love the description if "the traditional group stage format"...
(UEFA have absolutely sold the pass before, and may do again, with their willingness to accommodate bollocks "reforms" that only favour the wealthiest leagues and teams.)
The traditional format, from the (IMHO) vastly superior European Cup that predated the non-champion "Champions' League" was a knock out competition involving champions from all European Leagues.
To say nothing of the UEFA and Cup Winners' Cup, both of which I prefer to any of the current crop of UEFA competitions.
So tired of this argument. "Oh well sky and the premier league was about greed and they're rich so why complain about this kind of greed now." Errr.. Because they are seeking to permanently close the doors on competition and completely undermine everything everyone in English football competes for, thus rendering our own leagues and competitions void and feckless?
"Oh well Gary Neville you made money through greed in football and now you're piping up about this, what a hypocrite." The guy got his market worth, what was he supposed to do? And what has that got to do with clubs closing off competition, and ruining football, permanently? Was he supposed to put out a statement in 1999 warning us all 'this will come to a head,' like some right-back Nostradamus? Fck me.
I don’t think that’s the point he was making. This was also recorded months ago before we knew the full details of the breakaway.
I think he’s highlighting that both sides of the aisle are corrupt and greedy. Sky, BT, Premier League, UEFA, FIFA will all try and position themselves as if they care about the integrity of the sport, when in reality they only care about losing power and influence. All of these institutions have immeasurably impacted football negatively.
Both sides only care about money and power, whereas there’s only one side who’s being up front about it. Either way it’s ultimately the football fan who suffers.
I understand the nuance in the difference you've pointed out, but fundamentally it's the same argument. 'Don't complain about A being greedy when B, C, D and E are greedy, too. Even when A is actively seeking to ruin football.' It's nonsensical.
Respectfully, I read it the way Elliot did. And that's "Complain about A and complain about B, C, D and E too. Complain until football prioritises clubs and supporters.
I would say that very few, I would say none but someone would find one example, owners actually care about the supporters. In the proper sense.
Regardless of what they say. The ones that do are actually saying "the more money you spend the less I have to". Giving the the fans memories, a team to be proud, a great day out etc is just speal for "spend more money on tickets, merchandise, streams, food and drink etc".
I used this example on another thread but clubs "like Charlton" are in the live event business. Clubs like the "dirty dozen" are content providers. How you provide an environment where they can compete on, anywhere approaching, an equal footing is probably impossible.
So tired of this argument. "Oh well sky and the premier league was about greed and they're rich so why complain about this kind of greed now." Errr.. Because they are seeking to permanently close the doors on competition and completely undermine everything everyone in English football competes for, thus rendering our own leagues and competitions void and feckless?
"Oh well Gary Neville you made money through greed in football and now you're piping up about this, what a hypocrite." The guy got his market worth, what was he supposed to do? And what has that got to do with clubs closing off competition, and ruining football, permanently? Was he supposed to put out a statement in 1999 warning us all 'this will come to a head,' like some right-back Nostradamus? Fck me.
I don’t think that’s the point he was making. This was also recorded months ago before we knew the full details of the breakaway.
I think he’s highlighting that both sides of the aisle are corrupt and greedy. Sky, BT, Premier League, UEFA, FIFA will all try and position themselves as if they care about the integrity of the sport, when in reality they only care about losing power and influence. All of these institutions have immeasurably impacted football negatively.
Both sides only care about money and power, whereas there’s only one side who’s being up front about it. Either way it’s ultimately the football fan who suffers.
I understand the nuance in the difference you've pointed out, but fundamentally it's the same argument. 'Don't complain about A being greedy when B, C, D and E are greedy, too. Even when A is actively seeking to ruin football.' It's nonsensical.
I don’t think it’s a case of don’t complain about A because of B, C and D are bad too. I think he’s saying complain about all of them, they’ve all got blood on their hands.
Each and every entity has had a big part to play in the whole mess, it wouldn’t be appropriate if we didn’t condemn them all for this shit show.
So tired of this argument. "Oh well sky and the premier league was about greed and they're rich so why complain about this kind of greed now." Errr.. Because they are seeking to permanently close the doors on competition and completely undermine everything everyone in English football competes for, thus rendering our own leagues and competitions void and feckless?
"Oh well Gary Neville you made money through greed in football and now you're piping up about this, what a hypocrite." The guy got his market worth, what was he supposed to do? And what has that got to do with clubs closing off competition, and ruining football, permanently? Was he supposed to put out a statement in 1999 warning us all 'this will come to a head,' like some right-back Nostradamus? Fck me.
I know this will end up in the courts, but I assume the UEFA/FIFA argument is that football is organised around membership of football associations, and that all clubs and players must be registered in order to take part in competition.
Presumably, then, the membership organisations can expel/deregister any of those associated with the Super League and the creation of a Super League will surely reduce the argument that there is any kind of restraint of trade (of limited benefit outside the UK as a Common Law convention), as players can continue to ply their trade in their new League.
Whilst I'm absolutely in favour of casting the Super Leaguers and their minions out into the eternal darkness - because they'll have roughly the same relationship with sporting excellence and competition as WWE - I'd be in favour of footballing authorities allowing a reasonable amount of time for Academy/Youth players to transfer their registrations to clubs remaining in national leagues. For the rest of them, if they don't stand against the proposal, I couldn't give a toss.
This is the obvious eventual outcome football has been heading to for the past few decades. Every few years changes are made that concentrate more power and money in the hands of a select few. This leads to massive disparity in quality between the top teams/leagues and everyone else. Then you get people/teams complaining about boring group stage games in the Champions League, or predictable outcomes from the groups themselves with maybe one "surprise" team qualifying for the knock out stages each year. To rectify this they concentrate money and power even more in those same hands and the problem is exacerbated. How anyone could look at the Premier League and La Liga and think... yeah La Liga is great, we want the same teams to win each year, that will get fans interested is beyond me. The one thing the Premier League did right was dividing up prize money/tv money more evenly than other leagues, which has allowed for the likes of Leicester or Wolves, or Fulham to go on fairytale runs. Those runs are what keep people interested, even if more often than not its Liverpool, or Chelsea or one of the Manchester clubs winning it all. I'm sick and tired of it. I'm no fan of UEFA/FIFA or the Premier League/FA but I think they need to have backbone here. I see three possible outcomes:
1. They negotiate with these teams, give them more concessions, exacerbating the problem and in a few years we are back at the same position. The proposal will look a little different, maybe a different set of clubs but its the same core plan.
2. They allow these clubs to stay in their respective domestic leagues. Thats the end of the Champions League as it is effective immediately which has severe knock on issues for leagues like our own. A few years down the line the Super League is established, and these clubs look for more concessions or they threaten to leave their leagues, leauges they are dominating financially anyway. Reduced fixtures etc, more prize money and control for the top teams. Eventually after bleeding their domestic leagues dry they completely separate into an expanded global league and the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A etc are completely devalued
3. Have some backbone, kick them out now and take the hit financially, but leave those clubs to fend for themselves. Maybe they make a go of it, or maybe in a few years people get sick of the same 12-15 teams playing each other every week with no relegation meaning the likes of Arsenal and Spurs have no need to fight competitively as they rake in the cash - plenty of examples of this in the US, teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates make a tonne of money despite being a terrible team for a decade. If they come crawling back, they can start at the bottom of their equivalent pyramids.
Also, once they kick the traitor teams out - work on fixing European competition. Undo all the horrible work done to it in order to make the rich clubs richer. European cup goes back to Champions only. No qualifying, no seeding, no groups. Home and Away legs, straight knock out all the way until the semi final. Give me PSG vs Bayern Munich and Linfield vs Steaua Bucherest in the same round. Make the English champions travel to San Marino or Luxembourg in the first round if they have to. Bring back the Cup Winners Cup, and you can put all the other decent but not champion teams in the Europa League, with qualification if needed.
You can tell he's fuming, but he probably said about as much as he could without risking the sack. Clearly against it and knew nothing about it until yesterday.
I think the real news here is Spurs being counted in “the big six”! Really??? What’s that based upon then? The egos of their fans? Can’t be the silverware they win..........
You can tell he's fuming, but he probably said about as much as he could without risking the sack. Clearly against it and knew nothing about it until yesterday.
You can tell he's fuming, but he probably said about as much as he could without risking the sack. Clearly against it and knew nothing about it until yesterday.
Comments
(UEFA have absolutely sold the pass before, and may do again, with their willingness to accommodate bollocks "reforms" that only favour the wealthiest leagues and teams.)
The traditional format, from the (IMHO) vastly superior European Cup that predated the non-champion "Champions' League" was a knock out competition involving champions from all European Leagues.
To say nothing of the UEFA and Cup Winners' Cup, both of which I prefer to any of the current crop of UEFA competitions.
Regardless of what they say. The ones that do are actually saying "the more money you spend the less I have to". Giving the the fans memories, a team to be proud, a great day out etc is just speal for "spend more money on tickets, merchandise, streams, food and drink etc".
I used this example on another thread but clubs "like Charlton" are in the live event business. Clubs like the "dirty dozen" are content providers. How you provide an environment where they can compete on, anywhere approaching, an equal footing is probably impossible.
Presumably, then, the membership organisations can expel/deregister any of those associated with the Super League and the creation of a Super League will surely reduce the argument that there is any kind of restraint of trade (of limited benefit outside the UK as a Common Law convention), as players can continue to ply their trade in their new League.
Whilst I'm absolutely in favour of casting the Super Leaguers and their minions out into the eternal darkness - because they'll have roughly the same relationship with sporting excellence and competition as WWE - I'd be in favour of footballing authorities allowing a reasonable amount of time for Academy/Youth players to transfer their registrations to clubs remaining in national leagues. For the rest of them, if they don't stand against the proposal, I couldn't give a toss.
This was not said.
This is the obvious eventual outcome football has been heading to for the past few decades. Every few years changes are made that concentrate more power and money in the hands of a select few. This leads to massive disparity in quality between the top teams/leagues and everyone else. Then you get people/teams complaining about boring group stage games in the Champions League, or predictable outcomes from the groups themselves with maybe one "surprise" team qualifying for the knock out stages each year. To rectify this they concentrate money and power even more in those same hands and the problem is exacerbated. How anyone could look at the Premier League and La Liga and think... yeah La Liga is great, we want the same teams to win each year, that will get fans interested is beyond me. The one thing the Premier League did right was dividing up prize money/tv money more evenly than other leagues, which has allowed for the likes of Leicester or Wolves, or Fulham to go on fairytale runs. Those runs are what keep people interested, even if more often than not its Liverpool, or Chelsea or one of the Manchester clubs winning it all. I'm sick and tired of it. I'm no fan of UEFA/FIFA or the Premier League/FA but I think they need to have backbone here. I see three possible outcomes:
1. They negotiate with these teams, give them more concessions, exacerbating the problem and in a few years we are back at the same position. The proposal will look a little different, maybe a different set of clubs but its the same core plan.
2. They allow these clubs to stay in their respective domestic leagues. Thats the end of the Champions League as it is effective immediately which has severe knock on issues for leagues like our own. A few years down the line the Super League is established, and these clubs look for more concessions or they threaten to leave their leagues, leauges they are dominating financially anyway. Reduced fixtures etc, more prize money and control for the top teams. Eventually after bleeding their domestic leagues dry they completely separate into an expanded global league and the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A etc are completely devalued
3. Have some backbone, kick them out now and take the hit financially, but leave those clubs to fend for themselves. Maybe they make a go of it, or maybe in a few years people get sick of the same 12-15 teams playing each other every week with no relegation meaning the likes of Arsenal and Spurs have no need to fight competitively as they rake in the cash - plenty of examples of this in the US, teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates make a tonne of money despite being a terrible team for a decade. If they come crawling back, they can start at the bottom of their equivalent pyramids.
Also, once they kick the traitor teams out - work on fixing European competition. Undo all the horrible work done to it in order to make the rich clubs richer. European cup goes back to Champions only. No qualifying, no seeding, no groups. Home and Away legs, straight knock out all the way until the semi final. Give me PSG vs Bayern Munich and Linfield vs Steaua Bucherest in the same round. Make the English champions travel to San Marino or Luxembourg in the first round if they have to. Bring back the Cup Winners Cup, and you can put all the other decent but not champion teams in the Europa League, with qualification if needed.