Champions League to expand?

European football's governing body Uefa is considering ditching the Europa League in favour of extending the Champions League from 32 to 64 teams.
"We're discussing it. We will make a decision in 2014. Nothing is decided yet," Uefa president Michel Platini told French newspaper Ouest-France.
It means seven English clubs and five Scottish teams could qualify for European football's elite competition.
Uefa are looking at changing the format of European competitions from 2015.
"There is an ongoing debate to determine what form the European competitions will have between 2015 and 2018," added Platini.
The former France international said he was not worried by talk of Europe's richest clubs forming a competition to rival the Champions League.
"It's a question that is regularly brought up," he said.
"I can't see how it could work outside the Uefa framework. Who will referee them? In what stadiums will they play?"

How rubbish would this be.

I'm all for this. Everyone loves an underdog story, give some of the smaller teams a chance to have a go at Real and Barca.

In the long run it could make the premership more competitive if more teams got champions league money as the europa league pays peanuts.

Would have to change the name tho.

Would it need to change its name, hardly 'Champions' at the moment when the 4th place club gets in.

A silly idea which would dilute the Champions League and only lead to the big clubs further pushing for a breakaway league.

VDT wrote:I'm all for this. Everyone loves an underdog story, give some of the smaller teams a chance to have a go at Real and Barca.

In the long run it could make the premership more competitive if more teams got champions league money as the europa league pays peanuts.

Would have to change the name tho.

They aren't going to double the prize money though are they?

Small teams play big teams in their domestic leagues/cups and in the prelim rounds.

The group stages of the CL (and in recent years the first knock out rounds) are bad enough, never mind adding in the next 32 'best' teams.

Also you could come 7th and qualify, you'd get teams throwing their league challenge away to concentrate on the CL and e.g. have to play full strength teams at the weekend whilst 5th in Italy/Spain play an entire reserve team in preparation.

It is all kinds of fail.

Crimey wrote:A silly idea which would dilute the Champions League and only lead to the big clubs further pushing for a breakaway league.

Only chance of Liverpool being in the Champions League this decade...

Basically because they rebranded it and still nobody cares about the Europa League

Gregers wrote:

Crimey wrote:A silly idea which would dilute the Champions League and only lead to the big clubs further pushing for a breakaway league.

Only chance of Liverpool being in the Champions League this decade...

A well-made, intelligent and relevant point there.

theres no way teams could play reserves in league games as most leagues now rule that you have a 25 man squad only. its seriously unlikely that at any point would a team have an entirely fit second eleven to field. its all about squad rotation now anyway. champs league teams rotate squads in 2012, it would be exactly the same in 2015, im all for it. it would be nice to see 7 english clubs compete. and the premiership certainly has 7 teams that could 'compete' arsenal, chelsea, city, united, spurs, everton, liverpool, newcastle are 8.

Crimey wrote:

Gregers wrote:

Crimey wrote:A silly idea which would dilute the Champions League and only lead to the big clubs further pushing for a breakaway league.

Only chance of Liverpool being in the Champions League this decade...

A well-made, intelligent and relevant point there.

touched a nerve has he?

JamesLincs wrote:theres no way teams could play reserves in league games as most leagues now rule that you have a 25 man squad only. its seriously unlikely that at any point would a team have an entirely fit second eleven to field. its all about squad rotation now anyway. champs league teams rotate squads in 2012, it would be exactly the same in 2015, im all for it. it would be nice to see 7 english clubs compete. and the premiership certainly has 7 teams that could 'compete' arsenal, chelsea, city, united, spurs, everton, liverpool, newcastle are 8.

They very easily could play a second 11 or close to, I mean it already happens - look at e.g. Celtics teams/results around their CL games, on average 5 changes and 7 points dropped around the two barcelona games.

You are in fourth, not challenging for the league, safely in a european spot - clearly this is an advantage in preparing for a knock out game against a team who needs to win every week to challenge for a title.

There are 3 current CL sides with 0 or 1 point, last year 3 of them recieved 0 points in the group stages 2010 3 with 0 or 1 point. So we should add another 32 teams (these current teams having beaten 1/2 of the potential recruits in the prelim stage?)

Personally I feel it would ruin the CL and is a stupid idea on many levels.

JamesLincs wrote:

Crimey wrote:

Gregers wrote:

Crimey wrote:A silly idea which would dilute the Champions League and only lead to the big clubs further pushing for a breakaway league.

Only chance of Liverpool being in the Champions League this decade...

A well-made, intelligent and relevant point there.

touched a nerve has he?

No, would rather people actually took part in good debate than tried to get childish and irrelevant jabs in. I'm not bothered and think a lot can change in a decade and believe Liverpool could find their way back in. They have the resources to.

While I would love the Europa League to be scrapped, doubling the amount of teams in the Champions League will simply lessen the quality of what should be the premier club competition in Europe. Same old UEFA, don't give a stuff about football, it's all about the money.

I think they should keep the Champions League as it is, but change the format of Europa League.

Don't let teams who get knocked out of Champions League into the Europa, and return to it a straight knock-out cup. Don't play it on a Thursday, Champions League/UEFA cup alternate weeks on a Tuesday and Wednesday.

It's a shambles as it is, never mind what it will be if they continue down this route. If anything, I'd half the number of teams that were in it but of course that won't please Messrs Platini and Blatter. Speaking of him, was this another one of Michel's bright ideas?

I'd like to see the Cup Winners Cup brought back.

Make the Champions League champions only, and play it on Wednesday nights.

Put 2nd-5th sides in the Europa League, and play it on Tuesday nights.

Bring back the Cup Winner's Cup, and play it on Thursday nights......

Dave. wrote:Make the Champions League champions only, and play it on Wednesday nights.

Put 2nd-5th sides in the Europa League, and play it on Tuesday nights.

Bring back the Cup Winner's Cup, and play it on Thursday nights......

That's far too clever for Platini and Blatter.

Champions league should be Champions of the Leagues, Champions of the Champions League (if not a league winner) and Champions of the Europa League/Cup Winners Cup.

i think this is an awful idea from Platini, and i hope it isnt brought in!

The problem with the Champions only format is that nobody would give two effs about it. It would be nowhere near as great to watch as it is it times and people would get pretty sick of seeing United or City playing the same Eastern European teams just to have a chance at playing an elite team.

Just look at Liverpool's first four European Cup runs. They never played anyone decent until the semi's or sometimes not until the final.

They should just leave it be. It ain't broke so please Mr Platini for once can you not "fix" it.

Theres two ways of looking at this,

1) if your a big team supporter who gets into it, most years you will want it to remain the same, so that you get more moeny than most other teams in your domestic league and are better able to keep you position at the top.

2) if you support a smaller team it being expanded is a good thing, it means the champions league money is divided among more, closing the finicial gap between teams, you are better able to keep hold of players that would have left for champions league football.


For me I'm all for the expansion, it mean the half dozen top european clubs won't keep getting money and expanding the finicial gap, and will make the overall domestic league better, it will add more deversity to the European cup.

There is a threat that if Eufa do this the big clubs will break away and form thier own cup, (because they will recieve less money from Europe), but if Eufa don't they face the smaller clubs breaking away from thier domestic leagues and forming inter-country leagues instead.(as the only way they could generate income to match the biggest clubs)

Back in 2001 "UEFA chief executive Gerhard Aigner accepted the need for action in preventing the disparity between the largest clubs and the would-be Atlantic League participants, but during a two-day summit in Nyon, Switzerland in February 2001, ultimately rejected the proposal. He instead proposed a revamp of the UEFA Cup competition to try to redress the balance"

It's clear that the revamped UEFA cup has failed, it has done nothing to redress the disparity between the largest clubs.

UEFA face the decision to either
1) increase the places in European Cup, and hence the disparity between the largest clubs would be closed.
or
2) allow the Smaller clubs to form Leagues with other teams in other assoications.
An (eg) Atlantic League would aspire for itself and its clubs to achieve parity with the largest existing national leagues in England, Italy, Germany and Spain. Hence closing the disparity between the largest clubs.

It has now reached the point where UEFA will have to choose 1) expand European cup and face revolt from the top clubs, or 2) allow certain non-national leagues, or face revolt form all the smaller clubs in Europe.

UEFA are likely to oppose option 2), citing fear of the proliferation of non-national leagues, and will expand the European cup.

The thing is, the teams that would be getting into this expanded Champions League, would be the teams that previously were getting into the Europa League. I don't think there would a difference in money gained for them.

It would totally devalue the tournament, 32 is probably too many already but at least gives the chance for the underdog story...but the Champions League is best when you see Europe's best players facing each other.

There are already far too many pointless and uninteresting games in the Champions League, imagine the lack of interest in Dundee United V Dukla Prague?

Football is losing credibility rapidly as it is. This is supposed to be the premier European competition.

Crimey it would make a big difference in money to teams that used to be in the Europa league,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20523405

Man Utd pocketed £28m for getting knocked out at group stage in Champions League
Fulham, knocked out of the group stages of Europa league, won £2.2m

Its that finicial gap that needs to be closed.

In an expanded European Cup knocked out in group stage would = about £15 million, dependant on format.

The big clubs will get less money the smaller teams more money, to me this will close the gap between the have's and have nots, which overall will improve football. Are you not also getting bored of seeing the same teams getting to the knock outs year in year out?

super_realist wrote:There are already far too many pointless and uninteresting games in the Champions League, imagine the lack of interest in Dundee United V Dukla Prague?

Football is losing credibility rapidly as it is. This is supposed to be the premier European competition.

And the cream will still rise to the top in new format,
while it also closes the gap on haves and have nots, if 1/3 of the money was redirected from Champions League to Europa cup then that may also work. Currently whats being created it a system where there are only 2/3 teams capable of winning domestic league, and 5/6 winning European cup, and thier dominace will continue as they keep getting more champions league money than the rest meaning they are able to keep thier position and pull away from the others, keeping the status quo.

Of course, but how awful is the Rugby World cup because they pad it out with crap teams from countries who get pumped 100-0?

This will most likely diminish interest in the competition at least until the dreadful teams are eliminated.

It's not the same teams though, it's the same clubs, the players and coaches change, but as you just said those same clubs will make it to the K/O stages anyway. The only change would be that in the group stage or possibly two group stages we'd see a lot of pointless and uninteresting encounters between small clubs and the big clubs would still get more money as they would obviously get further.

I also think the Europa League is fine as a competition, and most of the criticism comes from England where people are typically cynical. I'd love to see Liverpool win the Europa League, and last year the final between Atletico Madrid and Athletic Bilbao was great and we got to see some well-matched games between two good football clubs, throwing those teams into the Champions League would likely just see the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid beat them fairly easily before getting to essentially the old format of the Champions League in the later stages.

Teams like Newcastle will struggle just the same playing in the Champions League as they do in the Europa League, a mid-week game, is a mid-week game and their squad would be struggling to cope just the same. Especially since with a 64 team format, the competition would either last longer, or stretch across Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday or more likely; both. The same issues that smaller sides like Newcastle have with the format would most likely remain.

i like both champions league and europa league..

and it would be a horrfic idea to condense these into 1 large tournament...would be awful and too long..imagine the schdeuling alongisde domestic compeitions..