Champions League

Talk about other football teams at all levels. AND ANY Glos City related threads, even if talking about the groundsharing.

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leohoenig
Posts: 2157
Joined: 20 Nov 2009, 10:50
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UEFA have announced there will be changes from 2018-19
They have not filled in all the details yet, but we know that

Four countries will now have four teams apiece, all with direct entry to the group stage, (barring some major change, the four will be Spain, England, Germany and Italy).

The club coefficients will change - this basically effects seeding and will give historic winners a seeding boost.

The money distribution will change. UEFA are promising a bigger cake, and hence more money even to those knocked out in qualifying, but one can bet that the bigger clubs are getting an even bigger slice

Meanwhile, to quote from UEFA, "A subsidiary company will be created that will play a strategic role in determining the future and the management of club competitions: UEFA Club Competitions SA, where half of the managing directors will be appointed by UEFA and the other half by the ECA".

Reading between the lines,
16 of the direct qualified teams to the Champions League will come from 4 Countries. Up to now, these countries have contributed 11 direct qualified teams, and a maximum of 15 teams. The 22 who directly qualify come from 12 countries at the moment, with a minimum of 17 (maximum of 20) countries represented at group stage. (It is 17 this season). One must suspect that when the dust has settled, there will be less countries involved at the group stage.

The change of seeding means that the draw will be slewed further in favour of keeping the bigger names apart in the early rounds,

The new company will inevitably take over the running of the competition, but a full scale European League is not inevitable, at least not in the near future.

If we created a European League based on those 16 clubs from four countries, with say four others added in, we would get (at first), some big matches with Barcelona v Manchester United one week, Juventus v Bayern the next. At the moment, there are only a few matches of this calibre until the knock out rounds

This means that the major teams only get beaten once, during the knock out stages. If they were playing in a league, one would finish 12th, someone else would be 16th, even the bottom place would be a big name team.

Now, you can stay as a big team by running away with your domestic league, and losing in the knock out rounds in Europe - but can you do so if you finish in the bottom half of your league for several seasons in a row, (even if this was a European league).

The current system guarantees a better revenue stream for the bigger clubs than a European league could do, so the dual domestic/ European season will continue for a while
RegencyCheltenhamSpa
Posts: 29758
Joined: 21 Nov 2009, 03:27
16 of 32 teams from just four countries.....money talks I guess.
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