There is a proposal to change the CL format starting 2024 that would create a promotion / relegation system between CL / EL / New 3rd tier competition already announced that would do way with the qualification system in the national leagues. Basically the proposal still has 32 teams in the group stages. But with 4 groups of 8 instead of 8 groups of 4. The top 4 of each group qualify for R16 stage. The bottom team of each group would be relegated (4 total). Top 4 teams of EL would be promoted to CL. EL would follow the same format with a 64 team 3rd tier competition below it. Obviously this requires more dates in the calendar. A big impact would be in the domestic leagues where there would be no meaning to battling for 2-4th or 5th-7th (in big leagues). Many teams would have nothing to play for other than position and money that goes with near the end of the season. Obviously domestic FAs will not like/agree with this.
There have been several articles about this "new" format for the CL. IMO it will be a disaster for European football as it will just create a league of the haves with every other team on the outside looking in. UEFA really have to consider what is good for football across all the FAs and the competition should encourage and give hope to all leagues. I would fix the CL as follows: continue the current group stage of eight groups of four teams top 12 UEFA FAs by ranking are guaranteed a spot in the group stage for the league champion and this will be reset every year continue to allow multiple entries into the CL for top ranked FAs as is now the case, but... allow only two teams from any one league an automatic spot in the group stage based on their place in the league (maybe only the top four FAs get two spots in the group stage) all other league champions and additional teams from top ranked FAs will be required to go through qualification rounds set up four knock out qualification rounds with seeding but make it more difficult for the 4th place team in these FAs so that they have to play a minimum of two rounds (example: based on 2018 EPL standings, ManCity and ManU would go direct to the group stage; Spurs would be in 4th qualification round, Liverpool in the 3rd qualification round) This would maintain the integrity of the FAs and make the CL a much more interesting competition since there would be more opportunities for an exciting knock out competition in the beginning. I will be interested to see what the television viewer ratings are for an all English CL final this year outside of England. I'm not sure I have much of an interest to watch another EPL match as I've watched too many already this season.
If you would create a group stage of 16 groups with 3 teams in it, you end up with the 16 you have now too, but you immediately create a group phase with cliff hangers as every match counts to become nr 1. There's no room for collusion to go through together, as there's only one winner.
That's a good approach also as it increases the number of teams in the group stage while reducing the number of matches for each team as well. UEFA needs to focus on the leagues and this would leave players with two fewer matches which is a good thing.
Groups of 3 are never a good idea, IMO. So you have a group like Man City, Lyon, AEK Athens. What's so exciting about that? Anyway, this thread is about the new format. I would prefer they just keep existing format for CL, reduce EL to 32 and introduce the 3rd tier competition with another 32 teams. Would also reduce the # if qualifying rounds to 3 for CL, 2 for EL and 1 for the other competition.
The recent Nations League competition had three team groups and it was really exciting as Dutch were grouped with France and Germany and against the odds, won the group. Germany was relegated down to the next tier. I want to end the entitlement for all the "big" teams. If they want to create a super league, put it on the table and be honest about it. Does anyone think AC Milan belongs in such a league even though they are one of the most successful sides in European football from a historical perspective. Would a super league have six EPL teams in it? This is all just bad for football and why would anyone want to watch such a predictable competition. At least my proposal adds a sense of drama as Liverpool would have had to go through two qualifying rounds! Ajax had to do three and made it to the semi-finals.
The NL is specifically designed to have groups that are evenly balanced. You wouldn’t have that in CL. In fact when you have 16 groups of 3 it creates the precise opposite - big gaps in quality from pot 1 to pot 2 teams. But agree with sexond half of your post.
Going to 3 teams per group doesn't solve any problems the current format has neither does it bring more money to UEFA.
in speaking of others you are describing AJAX entitlement in dutch football oh the irony. people watch the dutch league and thats alot more predictable, Ajax and PSV have won 7 of the last 8 titles. I have been LorneMarvello you have been Owned many thanks, and remember 2019 you are all englands *****!
Right you are and I saw that I wrote a post or two on that thread!!! Hard to keep my head on straight after this past Wednesday's CL match.
The Eredivisie sure has better title races than England, however. Several twists and turns every season it seems.
More often than not it goes down to the last match day and there have been several titles decided by goal differential. It's a wacky league where even the top teams lose to the minnows.
16 groups of 3 and 8 groups of 4 both have 6 matchdays of 16 games in the Group Stage. I wish there could be fewer qualifying rounds, but it isn't possible with so many clubs. The 2018-2019 UEFA CL had 53 clubs in qualifying for 6 spots if you combined the paths. Even if you wanted every club to start in the same round or have first round byes to make the amount of clubs work, it would take four qualifying rounds to get down to 6. The only way to reduce the amount of qualifying rounds would be to have fewer clubs start in the Group Stage, and that applies to both competitions. I would like 16 to 20 clubs to start in the CL Group Stage, but that's not going to happen.
I like the ideia of having a Champions League with 4 groups of 8 teams each. That would give us more big matches between top European teams in a season. In order to do this however the National Leagues need to be limited to 30 matches per season, so the maximum number of teams per League would be 16. I'm against the Promotion/Relegation solution however, because it would decrease the interest of the National Championships. My suggestion for the European Competitions Format in the future is this: -3 European Competitions: Champions League, Europa League and Solidarity League -Champions League: 4 groups of 8 teams | Top 4 advance to Round of 16 | Round of 16: 1A vs. 4B, 2C vs. 3D, 1B vs. 4A, 2D vs. 3C, 1C vs. 4D, 2A vs. 3B, 1D vs. 4C, 2B vs. 3A | The competition would then follow this tree format until the Final | 5th and 6th places teams drop to the Europa League Playoff Round (Similar to how the 3rd placed teams drop in the current format) | 7th and 8th places are eliminated from European Competitions. -Europa League: 4 groups of 8 teams | Top 2 advance to Round of 16 | 3rd and 4th placed teams go to the Europa League Playoff Round | Playoff Round: 5ACL vs. 4AEL, 6ACL vs. 3AEL and so on for every group | The Winners of the Playoff Round will face the 1st and 2nd placed teams of the Europa League in the Round of 16 and the Competition will follow the same tree format as the Champions League | 5th and 6th placed teams drop to Solidarity League Playoff Round | 7th and 8th placed teams are eliminated from European Competitions -Solidarity League: 4 groups of 8 teams + Qualifying Rounds | Top 2 Advance to Round of 16 | 3rd and 4th placed teams go to the Playoff Rounds against the teams that dropped from the Europa League | Format then is similar to Europa and Champions League | bottom 4 teams are eliminated from European Competitions The qualification to the European Competitions would be like this: -Each country can have a maximum of 4 teams per competition and 7 teams in all competitions -The slots allocated to each country for the next season of European Competitions would depend on the results obtained by their teams in the current season (this would mean that the UEFA Rankings would become irrelevant). -The 32 Teams qualified for the Champions League are from the countries that reach the Round of 16 of the Champions League and the Round of 16 of the Europa League. -To be better understood I will use this season example: Round of 16 Champions League and Europa League 18/19 Season: -England (4 CL Teams: Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester City, Manchester United + 2 EL Teams: Arsenal, Chelsea) - 6 slots (but as the maximum is 4 this will mean that the top 4 of the Premier League will qualify for the Champions League next season; 2 slots will go to other countries) -Spain (3 CL Teams: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid + 3 EL Teams: Sevilla, Villarreal, Valencia) - 6 slots (but as the maximum is 4 this will mean that the top 4 of the La Liga will qualify for the Champions League next season; 2 slots will go to other countries) -Germany (3 CL Teams: Bayern Munchen, Dortmund, Schalke + 1 EL Team: Frankfurt) - 4 slots (Top 4 of Bundesliga) -Italy (2 CL Teams: Juventus, Roma + 2 EL Teams: Inter, Napoli) - 4 Slots (Top 4 of Serie A) -France (2 CL Teams: Paris SG, Lyon + 1 EL Team: Rennes) - 3 Slots (top 3 of Ligue 1) -Netherlands (1 CL Team: Ajax) - 1 slot (Champion of Eredivisie) -Portugal (1 CL Team: Porto + 1 EL Team: Benfica) - 2 slots (Top 2 of Liga NOS) -Croatia (1 EL Team: Dinamo Zagreb) - 1 slot (Champion of Croatian League) -Czech Republic (1 EL Team: Slavia Praha) - 1 slot (Champion of Czech League) -Russia (2 EL Teams: Zenit, Krasnodar) - 2 slots (Top 2 of Russian League) -Austria (1 EL Team: Red Bull Salzburg) - 1 slot (Champion of Austrian League) -Ukraine (1 EL Team: Dynamo Kyiv) - 1 slot (Champion of Ukranian League) The 4 slots that are given from the Premier League and La Liga in this case would go to the countries of the teams eliminated in the Europa League Playoff that did better in the previous European Competition while England and Spain will get 2 slots each in the Europa League, in this example. Using the same logic the Europa League will be the countries of the teams eliminated in the Champions League 1st Round (7th and 8th placed) + countries for the teams eliminated in the Europa League Playoff + countris from the Solidarity League Quarter-Finals. Solidarity League will have 2 teams from each association (if the country already had the maximum of 7 teams in Champions and Europa League they will have 0 teams in Solidarity League and if the country has 6 teams in the other competitions they will only have 1 team in the solidarity League). Cup Winners of each country will get the top slot that's not a Champions League Slot, unless their country is not represented in the Champions League. In that case they will get the 2nd best spot. If the Country has a League Cup the Winners will get the worst slot available (If the country have no teams in the Champions League and Europa League, League Cup Winners will not qualify for European Competitions). Champions League Winners and Europa League Winners qualify for next season Champions League regardless of their domestic league position. Solidarity League Winners qualify for Europa League next season, regardless their domestic League position, unless they are able to qualify for Champions League via domestic competitions. In each competition 2 teams of the same country can't be drawn on the same group but there are no restrictions after that. I think this structure will give us a lot of European Football and many teams need to focus both on domestic competition and in europe. With the reduction of domestics league to 16 we can balance the number of games that exist now, with the additional european games that are present in this format. Battles for relegation and european qualification will become more fierce making both European and Domestic Football more appealing.
The 32-team format should never be changed. There should be 16 national champions. I say no to extra spots for the top leagues. Instead, let the quarter-finalists qualify automatically.
In my dream scenario I'd like to see 16 regional leagues with 16 team in each, so for example you will have a British and Ireland league, this will allow a city like Dublin tbe possibility of having a top club. There would be a Low Countries division, Iberian, Balkan (sketchy I know). The top 4 would all qualify at the end of season which finishes early and follows the Polish format. The last 2 months of the season would be a 64 team 2 legged play-off with the final at a neutral and venue.
I'm a supporter of a 16-team Beneliga (Belgium+Netherlands) and a 16-team Alpenliga (Switzerland+Austria).