New Potential European Format

The Soccer Blogger understands that the new Uefa president, Michel Platini, is considering changes to the Champions League format which would result in teams from Engalnd, Italy, and Spain having to play each other to qualify for the Champions League.

Platini suggested that Europe’s major leagues’ lowest-placed qualifiers were finding it too easy to qualify. I’ve always thought that. I mean you call the competition “The Champions League” and yet any old team can get into it. It should now be called “The European Cup” like it used to be. “The Champions League” would have been a far better name before, or is it just me? Apart from the fact it wasn’t a League format in those days!!

Anyway, Platini has said that, “It’s not about disturbing England, Italy or Spain, but about finding a balance.

“Perhaps teams from bigger countries, who have four and three qualifying teams, should play against each other.

“My problem is that the two English, Spanish and Italian teams in the final qualifying round do not play against each other, they play against smaller teams.

“We want to add some of the other countries to the competition and to do that we have take some of the others away.

“I’m not sure that the fourth clubs from Spain, Italy and England are more important than the champions of Poland, the Czech Republic and Denmark.”

I suppose it’s a balancing act between trying to make it a little fairer for the so called smaller clubs from the smaller countries and having the biggest teams as possible get through to the knock-out stages. Would the fans, neutral or otherwise, really have wanted a qualifying game between say, Man Utd and Liverpool or to see the same two teams potentially play in the Final? I know which game would get my vote!

Any changes to the format would not come into force until the 2009-10 season.

The Soccer Blogger

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Many thanks
Rik