What should the format of European football be?

[Jimmy Floyd]

You hear a lot of complaints about the current setup of the Champions League/Europa League, on various grounds, some bemoaning the excessive number of crap or uninteresting teams, some bemoaning repeated ties between the same clubs every year. If you were designing it from scratch now with a free pass, what format would you have? Stick with the two competitions or just have one? How many teams from which countries, and under what format?

Should be interesting to see what THE PEOPLE of TTH want.

[wullie]

The main thing I'd change about the CL is that any team who goes out at the group stage is out of Europe rather than getting a Europa League bye for not quite being the shittest side in their group.

[Lewis]

The ten biggest clubs (http://www.totalsportek.com/list/most-popular-football-clubs/), playing each other four times a season, with a top four play-off series in Qatar. Beyond that, nobody cares.

[Offshore Toon]

The Europa League is a bit of fun, but ultimately doesn't mean anything. Winners from all European leagues should be put into a straight knockout format with no seeding.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The ten biggest clubs (http://www.totalsportek.com/list/most-popular-football-clubs/), playing each other four times a season, with a top four play-off series in Qatar. Beyond that, nobody cares.

That's 40 odd games per side, how are you fitting it in?

[Lewis]

Domestic competition is beneath the clubs in question, so they will no longer be bothering with it.

[Yevrah]

The Europa League is a bit of fun, but ultimately doesn't mean anything. Winners from all European leagues should be put into a straight knockout format with no seeding.

Which would be even worse than what we have now.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Domestic competition is beneath the clubs in question, so they will no longer be bothering with it.

Great in theory (I forgot you favour accelerated capitalism and want Rochdale to be abolished) but in practice, when United are only winning about a third of their games year in year out, everyone will switch off.

[phonics]

Every time I hear that whole 'Champions League' straight knockouts I just have to laugh. Yeah mate, you'd definitely be watching Besiktas v Slavia Prague.

[Lewis]

Great in theory (I forgot you favour accelerated capitalism and want Rochdale to be abolished) but in practice, when United are only winning about a third of their games year in year out, everyone will switch off.

I don't see that being an issue so long as there are plenty of Goals, Assists & Skills to keep people interested.

[Offshore Toon]

The Champions League is already mostly crap. Might as well speed it up and provide more opportunity for upsets.

[Lewis]

If they want to 1) squeeze more games out of it; and 2) protect the Big Clubs, then they should go back to the second group stage in its 2003 form.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I've long thought they should use the African format and keep the group stage, but have it later on as a Super 8 prior to the semis/final. I suppose they can't take the risk of a Big Club being knocked out before then, though.

[John Arne]

Liverpool Lightning
Manchester Storm
Real Madrid Rebels
Bayern Munich Thunder

Give Peter Reid one of the manager jobs, and hold a draft every season for all the best players.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Weather based teams > others, as Australians will tell you.

[Lewis]

Liverpool Surge.

[John Arne]

Amend Real Madrid Rebels to Real Madrid Breeze.

[Jimmy Floyd]

In local cricket we had a thing recently in which the 32 teams in it each had to choose a silly suffix name to go after their small town club name for a T20 competition, and literally 7 of them chose 'Thunder'. This was deemed too many, so 4 of the Thunders had to change, upon which one of them picked 'Langoustines'. There are some mad, mad people out there.

[Giggles]

Just do a tournament like an international one but by league.

[Mazuuurk]

Just do a tournament like an international one but by league.

This isn't a bad idea really. Condense the seasons a bit and fuck off with the dragged out group stages. All club seasons are done in April - then you do the Champions League and be done with it in a month and a half.

[Kikó]

Champions League as today, UEFA cup comes back in with the same format as the CL (once you're out you're out), bring back the Cup Winners Cup and re-introduce the Anglo-Italian cup.

[Ian]

A single game each year between whichever two teams have the most social media activity, cities bid to host the game, it's done as a Super Bowl-esque extravaganza and whoever has the most possession wins.

[Jimmy Floyd]

They should play different formats actually. One perhaps as described above where there are no goals, and the winner is the first team to 45 minutes of cumulative possession, so you have a chess clock sort of device timing it.

Or you could have a Test match format of three two-hour sessions a day for five days. One for the purists. 'At dinner on day 4, Liverpool lead Bologna 2-1'.

[Reg]

I would have the two Milan clubs playing each other repeatedly, with other clubs allowed to join if they can demonstrate they meet the required level of history, stature and majesty.

[Ian]

They should play different formats actually. One perhaps as described above where there are no goals, and the winner is the first team to 45 minutes of cumulative possession, so you have a chess clock sort of device timing it.

Or you could have a Test match format of three two-hour sessions a day for five days. One for the purists. 'At dinner on day 4, Liverpool lead Bologna 2-1'.

"A correction to our earlier report: Liverpool had bolognese at dinner and are 2-1 ahead of Leeds."

I'm also thinking football with wrestling style matches. Tag matches where you have a second XI on the sidelines and the captain can tag the other captain and his XI in when they need a breather

Also a tournament to determine a WWE-style Money in the Bank, where the winners can take on the world cup winners any time they fancy for the title.

[JPA]

Champions League should go back to being the European Cup, where only the winners of the National League qualify. The draw is unseeded, therefore if luck shines on them, some shithouse side from Moldova or somewhere could get quite far. This would even out the wealth, instead of the same teams trying to get 3rd or 4th each season and thinking it's a job well done.

UEFA Cup comes back. Same format as before, teams take it more seriously and the winner gets some cash and a trophy, not a free ticket into European Cup.

Then bring in either a Cup Winners' Cup or a second tier UEFA Cup. Basically, every team that wins their National Leagues 2nd Division or whatever it may be called, then goes into this. This would give these teams a chance to play in European competition as many will never ever break the monopoly of the top 5 or 6 clubs in their domestic League and it'd add more excitement to the domestic season.

Make all these 2 legged, proper knockout Football. On their day, most teams can pull out a shock result but what good is that if your, say, a team like Molde and you beat PSG in a group stage yet then face 5 hammerings in the other games.

I don't watch much CL or EL footy, mainly because over half the matches played are 'pointless' as they end up having no effect on the outcome of who goes through.

[Andy]

Its a tough one, something needs to change as European football as it is currently is dull for the neutral. Ive seen all these ties so many times its just not interesting anymore. Cant be bothered to watch any of it these days.

I think there are probably too many teams in Europe but then if there where less I probably wouldn't have had the chance to go to Arnhem or Milan with Southampton the last two seasons. The Europa as a straight knockout with all the matches being played at the same time on the same day would make it more interesting, even then I doubt id be too bothered about watching anything that wasn't the final.

I think theres just so much football on TV / the internet these days that nothing is exciting anymore. Not too bothered about seeing Barca play PSG when I can watch them both play on TV every weekend, if the Euro games where the only chance to watch people like Messi/Suarez/Neymar etc id be more interested. Only getting worse though, football everywhere on TV. Wont be long until 3pm games are televised.

[Lewis]

Assuming that any champions-only European Cup would still attract a lot of money, how would you 'even out the wealth' by only having one team benefit from being in it? England would be alright, and Spain would continue as normal, but Italy and Portugal would become like France and Germany (which would get worse), and everywhere below would become joke leagues with one side running the sort of huge advantages that they haven't enjoyed since the secret police used to help them out.

[bruhnaldo]

Champions League (16)

Winners of: La Liga, EPL, Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Eredivisie, Süper Lig, Jupiler, Superleague, Russian Premier, Primeira Liga, UPL, Serbian SuperLiga, Liga 1, Allsvenskan, SPL.


So this year it would've had

Barcelona
Leicester City
Bayern Munchen
Juventus
PSG
PSV
Besiktas
Brugge
Olympiacos
CSKA Moscow
Benfica
Dynamo Kyiv
Red Star Belgrade
Astra Giurgiu
Malmo
Celtic

4 groups of 4

Top 2 in each group advance to the single elimination knockout stage (home and home ties).

Ties are played until a winner is crowned.

---

Elite Cup

The other teams that would've qualified for the current iteration of the Champions League would then be dropped into the Elite Cup.

The Elite Cup would be a single elimination knockout tournament up until the Final 4 teams. At this point, the Final 4 teams would play a round robin to determine the last 2 finalists. The host country of the Final 4 would rotate based on bids for it's rights.

These two would then play in a one-off, neutral site game for the Elite Cup itself.

The winners of the Elite Cup and European Cup will still play in the UEFA Cup.

In all honesty the "Elite Cup" would probably prove to be the better competition but it bothers me to no end the "Champions League" really doesn't give way to many actual champions.

[phonics]

Champions League should go back to being the European Cup, where only the winners of the National League qualify. The draw is unseeded, therefore if luck shines on them, some shithouse side from Moldova or somewhere could get quite far. This would even out the wealth, instead of the same teams trying to get 3rd or 4th each season and thinking it's a job well done.

No it wouldn't, no-one would watch it (as they already aren't) and it would die.

[Spikey M]

Don't forget the Extra-Time-Multi-Ball in the Elite Cup

[JPA]

I'd even out the wealth by rewarding teams accordingly.

So, if Man Yoo won it, they would only get a 100k. But if someone like Rosenborg won it, they would get millions.

As for domestic Leagues, most are total non events anyway because of TV rights etc... But, now and again, there is a total turn up for the books - Leicester last season and Nice are following the same route this year.

Anyway, would do teams like Arsenal good to get fuck all for scabbing 4th each season.

[Shindig]

If you even out the money the clubs might not see Europe as a priority. TV rights are where the money comes from and, unfortunately, the exciting undercurrent doesn't get the rub.

Champion's League
Kinda as it is. 32 teams but the seedings are based around last year's last 16. No European football for the third spots.

UEFA Cup
Four two-legged rounds before moving into the Quarter Final stage. Like 2001 but minus the Champions League drop-outs which will allow smaller clubs to compete for longer.

[niko_cee]

In terms of money, isn't it getting to the point where European football is more of a burden than a benefit to most Premier League teams?

Without even getting into the the mechanics of how you monetise fitness advantage? Is that what we're calling it still, or is it coaching advantage now?

A reversion to the old format, as JPA suggested, or maybe just revenue share across the existing competitions? Not that there will be much to share. Maybe if Real become the first team to retain the Champions League as it is then it's a good time to call it a day. Nice to bookend it and all. It's had a good run. I can only begin to imagine the seethe in UEFA towers as Scudamore rolls out yet another insane tv deal as their 'product' teeters nearer the toilet daily.

[Shindig]

It's a weird thing to think about because we've had the likes of Basel come and go, the Russian influx of a few years ago and then the likes of Fulham, Rangers and Boro getting to European finals. Shame it doesn't happen as much in the Champions League.

[Kikó]

Those who say there is too much football on, you know you don't need to watch it right?

I watch about two games a weekend which is fine.