Changes to the Champions League

[Yevrah]

Are apparently in the pipeline, albeit with disconcertingly vague details at this stage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35535729

What would you do to change it and for that matter, its retarded younger brother?

[Smiffy]

The only thing in my mind that would improve the Champions League/Europa League is by going straight to a knockout competition which won't ever happen for obvious reasons. £££.

[Yevrah]

Unseeded and one legged too?

[Reg]

I would keep it the same, although wouldn't be too averse to Smiffy's idea.

[The Merse]

This thread just reminded that this shite actually happened:

https://www.atthematch.com/article/the-champions-league-2nd-group-stage

I'd allow a maximum of 2 teams from each league, ensuring the likes of Ferencvaros and Austria Wien return to the group stages, I'd bring back the European Cup Winners Cup and make the Uefa Cup a 2 legged knockout comp.

Basically, I want it to be 1995.

[Reg]

Oh, the Europa League - yeah, definitely just a straight knockout. Possibly get rid of the two leg ties and that might ensure that clubs rest fewer players (although other countries seem to value it more than we do anyway).

[Giggles]

I'd scrap the Europa and cut back on the CL.

[Browning]

It probably could be improved, but the idea of putting certain teams in ever year is really fucking shit.

[niko_cee]

You're not going to be allowed in unless you have 50,000,000 fans on social media.

[Smiffy]

Unseeded and one legged too?

Why not. Gives more chance for a club version of Greece at least.

[Kikó]

They should just have a twenty team super league which plays in each continent and in the biggest stadiums. Do away with football and kill it once and for all.

[Smiffy]

My opinion on a super league has changed somewhat over the years. I'm all for it.

[Kikó]

It'll be unadulterated corporate wank.

[Smiffy]

Perhaps but I'm only interested in the 90 minute matches. It wouldn't be a great deal different to the Champions League as it stands I don't think.

[Shindig]

I didn't like it in FIFA 99 so a real tournament would be cock.

I'd second a 1995 throwback. Its not like the Cup Winners Cup was lacking in prestige and its where Britain's post-Heysel success came. It was a shorter competition but wasn't lacking in terms of top teams. Its a shame some clubs see Thursday football as an inconvenience. Wankers like Spurs, basically. Shitting up a Tuesday near you.

[phonics]

This unseeded knockout nonsense is exactly the same as the FA Cup argument.

"Ugh, same teams all the time. So boring. Where are the upsets?"
"Portsmouth v Cardiff in the final? I'm not watching that."

Load of people droneing on because they haven't got another topic to moan about that week. So something has to be SHIT and need CHANGE.

[Jimmy Floyd]

It sounds like the clubs basically want to close the shop, which if they succeed will be the death of football. They don't realise that they are only popular because they win all the time, mostly against toss.

[mugbull]

There's nothing wrong with Europa now that the winner gets auto qualification to the CL. It might make the CL more interesting to cut down on the number of PL, La Liga teams in favor of smaller teams but it would definitely make it a worse competition so I'm on the fence about that one

[Clunge]

Cut Champions League to 16 teams. Restore Eufa Cup to pure, two-legged knock-out. No drop-off from Champions League into Eufa Cup. Winner of Eufa Cup gets Champions League spot the following season. Bring back the Cup Winners' Cup and make it just that. Voila.

/90s.

[Reg]

It would be interesting to see the knock-on effect of a Super League, where the top teams left their national leagues.

Would England be more interesting? A Leicester every year? I wonder how non-Barcelona and Real Madrid fans in Spain would react to suddenly being in with a shout of winning something.

[Clunge]

Part of me would like to see the Champions League become an ACTUAL champions league (correct me if this was once the case).

[The Merse]

When it was the European Cup it was. I'd just happily go for the early days of the Champs League where it was 75-80% champions.

[Raoul Duke]

Sounds like a completely shite idea. Everyone involved in coming up with it should be sealed inside an iron ball and fired into the sun.

[ItalAussie]

It'll be automatic qualification to the top 16 ranked teams in Europe, or something like that. :moop:

What they want is automatic qualification to the 16 most profitable teams in Europe, but it's hard to imagine them being quite so nakedly rapacious.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The other thing that clubs don't understand is that the thrill that attracts people to football is in the uncertainty. If Juventus are given Champions League qualification simply because they are Juventus, what is the point?

Currently European football is based around meritocracy, whether that be qualifying via performance, stronger leagues having more places, etc. As soon as you remove any meritocracy you remove all of it, and you might as well start scripting the results as well, like WWE.

[SvN]

Part of me would like to see the Champions League become an ACTUAL champions league (correct me if this was once the case).

It was champions only prior to 1998.

[Weaver]

The other thing that clubs don't understand is that the thrill that attracts people to football is in the uncertainty. If Juventus are given Champions League qualification simply because they are Juventus, what is the point?

Currently European football is based around meritocracy, whether that be qualifying via performance, stronger leagues having more places, etc. As soon as you remove any meritocracy you remove all of it, and you might as well start scripting the results as well, like WWE.

Lazio def. Fenerbahce by DQ, after the use of an illegal item.

[Lee]

They always chuck this kind of shit about when they want more money out of the competition. If I'm correct this 'big club' organisation has about 200 members. They know full well they aren't all getting guaranteed European football. They're just starting negotiations early. Funny how a super league only gets mentioned around this time in the negotiating cycle.

The Champion's League is already a super league. It's basically a closed shop because it's very tough for the biggest clubs not to qualify. And they get money spinning 'play offs' through the spring leading to their 'Superbowl'.

[Jimmy Floyd]

If things finished how they are at the moment - for the sake of argument let's say Barcelona and Dortmund win the cups - Champions League 16/17 will look like something like this:

Pot 1: Barcelona, Leicester, Bayern Munich, Napoli, Benfica, PSG, CSKA Moscow, Shakhtar

Pot 2: Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Arsenal, Dortmund, Schalke, Zenit, Porto

Pot 3: Manchester City, Basel, Olympiakos, Tottenham, Dynamo Kiev, PSV, Sporting, Viktoria Plzen

Pot 4: Club Brugge, RB Salzburg, Celtic, Monaco, APOEL, Besiktas, BATE Borisov, Hertha Berlin

This assumes higher ranked teams win all the playoffs. Now if you're the ECA you hate that setup. Far too many games against sides that don't draw a huge TV audience, and profitable teams like United, Chelsea, Milan and Inter nowhere to be seen. It's a good football tournament which spreads interest across the continent, but it's not the tournament they want. They want constant money spinners and are happy to flog their players into the ground to get them - look what they do in 'pre season' now.

[ItalAussie]

They want constant money spinners and are happy to flog their players into the ground to get them - look what they do in 'pre season' now.Very few things in football make me angrier than "mid-season friendlies".

[CJay]

Why? We're having one tonight. :baz: Unless you're referring to money-spinning mid-season friendlies, which really aren't very commonplace, are they? Maybe in leagues with winter breaks, but even then? Not so sure.

[Raoul Duke]

I always like foreign managers giving it large about 'the winter break' but then they take their teams off to Dubai to play Sheik Rattlenroll's All Star XI, thereby negating having an actual period without football.

[ItalAussie]

Why? We're having one tonight. :baz: Unless you're referring to money-spinning mid-season friendlies, which really aren't very commonplace, are they? Maybe in leagues with winter breaks, but even then? Not so sure.

Increasingly common. I'm fairly sure someone big turned up here in Australia over Christmas to make a few bucks.

[CJay]

Increasingly common. I'm fairly sure someone big turned up here in Australia over Christmas to make a few bucks.

Some examples? I'm not sure these 'money-spinning' ties happen very often at all. Teams probably should play friendlies over the winter break in order to maintain match fitness. And there's no harm in combining that with a training camp in another country. Trips like Man City's to Dubai whenever that was was really stupid, of course.

[SvN]

I saw a few City players walking around Melbourne in their full tracksuits in the summer. Wankers.

[Jimmy Floyd]

There was some stuff about this in the Telegraph today. Apparently the viewing figures for the Champions League on BT have been absolutely diabolical, which confirms what I and quite a few on here were saying at the start. Anyway, apparently one of the options being banded/bandied around (which is it for fuck's sake?) is to cut the group stage down to 16 clubs. That would cut out the riff raff, which the big clubs are explicitly desperate to do, but would also risk some quite lol scenarios in terms of the preceding knockout round of 32 which is also being proposed.

I also very much doubt that the UEFA members or indeed many of the 'ECA' group of 200+ clubs would vote for it because it's only really in the interests of the top 8 or so clubs. So we're in interesting times.

[niko_cee]

Cutting down the Champions League and restoring the UEFA Cup to some sort of order would be the most sensible approach to take, although I'm not sure how much 'the broadcasters' would like Leicester and Spuds being the 'EPL' representatives at the top table. The new Premier League tv deal is probably going to break most aspects of football.

[John Arne]

It was champions only prior to 1998.

The European Cup and Champions Leagie included previous years winners, too.

[Jimmy Floyd]

It also had a glorious unseeded draw so you quite often got disastrous first round matches, like that time Maradona's Napoli drew Real Madrid or someone in the first round.

I can imagine the seethe nowadays if a Nottingham Forest v Malmö final were allowed to happen.

[Lee]

Just wait until Leicester are in the final next year.