UEFA Champions League Expansion
The talk of the World Of Football community has been dominated by the UEFA Champions League this week, with particular attention focussed on the elimination of 2 of the tournaments greats - No, not Barcelona and Juventus but Messi and Ronaldo. But I'm not here to go over that ground...
Flying under the radar somewhat is a forthcoming decision which could further change the tournament. A decision which could be beneficial to Europe's elite clubs, but detrimental to English Domestic Football.
I'll show my age here... as I was growing up, the Champions League (or European Cup as it was known) was for the winner of each domestic league. (I still don't understand how a team can finish 4th and play in a competition for champions??!) It slowly grew into the tournament we see now with millions of pounds in prize money (for each point gained in the group stage), increasing or in some leagues (e.g. Ukraine) creating a gap between the top team(s) and the rest.
From what I've read, UEFA are proposing to enlarge the tournament - instead of 8 groups of 4, we'll see 8 groups of 6, an extra 16 teams and an additional knockout stage. That's a lot of extra fixtures.
Bearing in mind that the top managers already moan about the number of fixtures they have (not just this season), where will these extra fixtures fit in and at what cost?
Pep Guardiola has come up with an ingenious solution:
"I think the solution is you have to make a year of 400 days, that is a solution, 400 or 500, more or less. After that we can book another competition. Maybe UEFA or FIFA can talk about it. We have few days a year, that's the problem," Quote Source
But we're not talking about the expansion meaning you can finish 5th and qualify. No, that would be fair and wouldn't pander to Europe's elite. The suggestion is that some teams qualify, wait for it... because they are big clubs. They've done well, have a strong history and with it, a high UEFA Coefficient. Is this fair?? So @tomlee, you don't need to worry, Liverpool will be playing in the Champions League for a long time to come (although the proposed changes won't come into effect until 2024/24, possibly too late for Klopp 😉).
Of course, there are knock on effects other than the richest clubs in the world having to rotate their multi-millionaire superstars. The English League Cup is already losing its magic. Top teams don't take it seriously and often send out their youth teams. The lower league clubs still relish the draw, the opportunity to play a "big" club and their chairmen rub their hands at the idea of the additional income that could potentially save their club from financial ruin. This loss of revenue, especially having had no gate receipts for more than 12 months , could spell the death of many clubs and is a fear being felt in the lower levels of English football.
So the world may rub their hands in anticipation of a lot more European Football, but I for one, and a large proportion of the English game is praying for this not to happen 🙏
