"OSLO, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Norway, Sweden and Denmark are planning a Scandinavian mini-Champions League to extend soccer towards the winter amid growing interest from fans, the Norwegian league said on Thursday." http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=reu-nordic&prov=reuters&type=lgns Not a bad idea, but I wonder if the players really need the extra games? Also, where is Finland?
Just east of Sweden. Seriously, though - it might be interesting, since the Scandinavian teams tend to fall out of Europe early in the season.
Since this is planned as a Scandinavian tourney, then it wouldn't include Finland, or Iceland for that matter, would it? Now a Nordic tourney would be a different story... Seriously, it will be interesting to see if any other FAs are invited. To take three teams from each league seems a little much. And I'm not convinced the format mentioned in the article is best. They're grouping the first stage with teams from the same league. Well, the fans will have just finished watching a season of these same teams playing each other, why are they going to show up in increasingly poor weather to watch these same teams compete against one another? This first group stage should include a team from each league, so it's something new for the fans and players. Canadian Supporter, you bring up a good point regarding extra games for the players. But by and large these teams are generally eliminated early in Euro competitions, and their national cup competitions don't include a lot of extra games like in larger countries. Lastly, most of the players on these clubs aren't on national teams, or at least not yet, so they're not exposed to those demands either. This competition shouldn't be too much of an extra burden for these athletes. I hope it works. It might even start a trend for leagues in similar circumstances.
Well since Scandinavian teams always becomes illiminated in the top 8 of European cups cause of the late start of the leagues this is an OK Idea. But as all you other guys say this format sucks....... I know that most fans in Denmark are eager to compare the Danish league level with the other Scandinavian leagues. With this format no one in denmark will turn up to see the matches and the cup will be dead after one year. The best would have been the Rosenborg suggestion to UEFA to make an Nordic Championsleague tournament with 8 teams, 2 from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and 1 from Finalnd and Iceland in 2 groups of 4 the winner of each group gains a ticket directly to the Champions league. This would increase the number of highprofiled TV matches for Scandinavian TV, and the teams will to fight will be higher cause of the higher stake and then fans would turn up to the matches.