The former world-class player Michel Platini is favouring a radical reform of the European competitions. His suggestions: abolish the Champions League and just have one European Cup with 256 participants, knockout system from the first to the last game. "Today the European Cup is a closed circus. The more games you have, the more probable it is that the big ones win. But Bayern Munich also has to play in Malta or Georgia sometimes", said the French to 'Welt am Sonntag'. Platini also demanded a strict applying of the licensing procedure that UEFA wants to introduce from 2004 on. "If Real Madrid does not balance their accounts within three years, then they have to be thrown out of the Champions League. I would be very disappointed if UEFA didn't have the courage." ============ Sounds nice in theory, but is not realisable. My view since years is that the Champions League is destroying the structure of the national competitions as it is impossible to get the top teams off their national throne over decades now with their big income in the CL. OTOH the CL is the best soccer competition in the world by far and it also lives by the mode that guarantees a deserved and not a coincidential winner (that's maybe fun, but not good for a competition). Exactly this is the reason why I prefer a separation of an European League on top of all national leagues without clubs playing in both competitions. Platini's plans would enforce this as G14 would refuse to abolish the CL, probably even a further reduction.
I like Platinis ideas... The European cup should be just a straight knockout from start to finish. Any team that wins in those conditions would fully deserve to win. It wouldnt be just the same old rich teams year after year.
It would be nice, but at this point the Champions' League is such a cash cow for UEFA that they'd never give it up.
Plus, I dunno, personally, I like the idea of the Champions' League, although not at present. A CL with only one group stage would be ideal - that way it would follow the format of the World Cup and the European Championship (although the EC doesn't have a round of 16).
They're gonna abolish Group Stage 2 next year, so it will basically be the same as the WC, unless with 2 leg ties in Rd. of 16 thru Semifinal, instead of 1 and out.
The problem with straight knock-out has always been seeding. The big guys always like it, the smaller fish don't. For example, the year after Napoli won their 1st Italian championship they lost in the 1st round of Champions Cup to Real Madrid. So Europe lost out on seeing one of the more entertaining sides (w/Maradona, Careca, etc) because of this straight draw. Also, a knock-out is not that great because it isn't truly representative of the team's strenghts. Who you play in your respective league the weekend before and after has as much to do with how you play that middle Wed than the actual Wed competition. Also, the staggered starts of the various Euro leagues means in September, some teams have already played a full month of domestic competition and players are match fit, while other leagues are just getting started. Finally, with the escalating salaries and transfers, a knock-out system would probably create a larger gap between the big clubs and the smaller clubs. A small club, if they qualify for the current competition are asured of 6 matches (3 home) with all the related tix and tv $$. They can also sell more ad related $$ becuase of the increased continental exposure for a guaranteed 3 months leading up to the holidya season. With a knock-out competition only the big boys would be willing to stick their necks out financially and absorb the investment for a possible 1st round exit!! I think next years set-up works the best. A group stage with all the guarantees in the beginning, then a knock-out from their. If you look at the recent history of the CL, as many small clubs (Rosenburg, Porto, this year Ajax) have made it out of the 1st round as made it to the final 16 years ago in the all knock-out competition.
If we did what former players thought was right, Bayern would be in Italy. Next year's format is ideal.
My gripe is that the CL isn't a CL anymore--there's only the Big and the Little UEFA Cup. Having three or four teams from one league/nation compete in the CL is a true mockery. Both competitions have suffered tremendously as a result. I can see how the top three leagues might be allowed two entrants, but the current format is simply ridiculous. While Platini's idea isn't perfect, to me it is a lot more interesting than the CL as it is contested now. But then again, I'm for getting rid of the WC and having each international match-up count towards an international ranking system (no more friendlies).
I always hate the away goal system in European Cup competiation. The visitors try to get an away goal and hold at home for the win. For me, a goal is a goal. A tied score is a tied score. So if the entire European Cup will be a knockout tourament, I would be upset with alot of results. Having said that, I do agree the current CL is a tournament for the big boys. The little guys would be there for the sideshow. Leverkusen is the only small team who went far in recent years. All teams from the quarter-final onward have been there.
The CL is for the big boys, but as I said, from the sportive aspect you don't have a better competition in the whole world. I like to see the best ones compete, but of course this causes the main problem that it destroys the structure of the national leagues, as the teams making the second group stage or more on a regular base are untouchable over years or even decades now (if their officials weren't entirely mad). I don't see the problems with the small ones as they have the (little) chance to qualify if they are good enough. Regarding the title 'Champions League': if they hadn't introduced it from the Cup of the Champions, then there wouldn't be any understanding problems - they want to find the best team from Europe, the European Champion, that's it; you don't need to be a national champion for that. My criticism on the UEFA Cup already starts with the existance. The best teams are the ones failing in the CL group stage, which in other words means that you play out a trophy for the 17th in Europe. Also, the knockout stage is over-hyped IMO - what you regularly see is a boring first game, in which the home teams wants to avoid getting a goal against, and the road team wants to avoid a bad result. Surely it's interesting if you have a close result in the second game though. But the away goal rule you mentioned, makes the sense that UEFA wants to avoid that the road team just tries to be defensive and rather go for destruction than playing soccer. Maybe it would be more fair and worth a thought to change the format to Best of Three to make every game important, but then you're getting the problem of who's the lucky one to play the third game at home, plus in this format a game is boring if it isn't close.
I like the idea-but not to that extreme. A quick count on the Uefa site shows there are 53 member nation. So, we all know who the big boys are right? Then, with an early playoff for the smaller nations, get it down to 32 teams, all of them, actual league champions. In a knockout format, we are now looking at five weeks of football. Put the names the vase, pluck 'em out and make your draw. Start in mid-April, working your way to "May Madness."
If money were not such a huge motivating factor for participating in the CL, I would endorse Platini's suggestions. Having the current 'elitist' format of the CL ensures the big clubs participating every year. The group stages were developed for that very reason - to showcase the top clubs playing against each other on a home-and-home series for a total of six times. While I enjoy watching the top clubs perform, perpetuating such a format does not do a small club from a small nation any good. OTOH, a knock-out format of 256 clubs would mean a Real Madrid beating up on some lowly club from Kazakhstan. 256 clubs participating on a knock-out basis would mean 8 match-days of European competition. Personally, I prefer 256 clubs playing a home-and-home series, with the final on a knock-out basis. Such a format would give UEFA 15 match-days of European competition. UEFA need several more match-days to counter the loss of the lucrative TV distribution of the group stages, when several big clubs are lumped together in a single group.
But that's the exact idea he is proposing - 256 teams play each other home and away, with the final a one-off at a neutral venue. Not sure where he gets 256 teams from just the champions of 53 nations, but there you go. Clearly the part about just champions is a miscommunication. The aim of football's governing bodies should be to perpetuate football throughout their sphere of influence. When they stop doing that, they stop being truly effective. It is no coincidence that the emergence of the G-14 cabal and their pernicious influence on the game across Europe coincides exactly with UEFA's decision to abandon the principles by whcih it previously acted. Nor - and this is more serious - is it any coincidence that that same period of time coincides with football's quasi-bancrupcy across the continent. Giving smaller teams the chance to make a run deep into the world's foremost club football competition is in and of itself a good thing and, in terms of spectacle, no less a rewarding prospect than anything else. In actual fact, it is markedly more attractive than the annual dirge we have to endure when already eliminated "glamour sides" play out meaningless league commitments in the Also-Rans League with their Youth and reserve squads in front of 8,000 spectators. Anyone who enjoys the FA Cup will understand the value of the Underdog to the spectacle of sport. And anyone who appreciates diversity amongst football will understand that Platini's model is eminently workable and desirable (witness the emergence of Dynamo Kyiv a couple of years ago - a scintillating team which could have benefitted from this format enormously, possibly to the extent of staying together and going on from there). Only people who have become accustomer to football as some sort of gormless eye-candy wankfest would mourn the demise of the bloated, pointless Also Rans League.
Thanks for the clarification Matt. I think UEFA will be able to field 256 competitive clubs. A cursory glance at bert kassies website shows some 240-odd clubs with UEFA '02 team coefficients. In the round of 256, what I'd like to see is that the 52-odd national champions automatically qualify. And so too their respective domestic cup champions. With some double league/cup national champions, you'll probably be able to get 80-90 clubs to automatically qualify. The rest of the field can then be stocked with clubs who didn't win their nation's league or cup competitions, but still rate highly on the UEFA team coefficient. Clubs such as Manchester United, Liverpool, etc., will fall into this category. Actually, this non-champions bracket will feature some of the biggest clubs in Europe. What I would also like to see in a 256-club competition is for the 52 national champions to knock each other out. This format will ensure that by the time the field gets down to the last 64, there will still be at least 13 national champions competing. If there is no champions' bracket, after the first round, the 128 surviving clubs will probably only see some 20-odd surviving national champions, with the minnow champions getting booted out. In this way, the UKR or the SCO national champions will have a decent chance of advancing to the later rounds, instead of being eliminated by a strong Spanish club for example. At the same time, you'll also have a non-champions bracket - the Manchester Uniteds, the Liverpools, the Depors of the world. So Europe will still see the spectacle of the big names knocking each other out in the 1st round of the 256-club competition. Hopefully, by the time the round of 64 come around, you will still have 13 national champions left, 10-odd domestic cup champions left, & about 40 clubs come from the non-champions bracket. The non-champions bracket will probably see some of the biggest clubs in Europe . Now toss out the brackets, seed them accordingly, sit back, and enjoy the competition.
It is definitely better to have European clubs battle out for only one cup than one and a half as it is now. Bringing back the Cupwinners Cup would actually be better than having the UEFA Cup in its current pathetic shape. As for Platini's suggestion, I'm all for it. Anything that gives smaller nations and clubs a better shot at glory is a good thing for the game in the long run. The biggest clubs have been milking Europe and the world for talent and money for way too long now. For once we have suggestion from the governing body that goes in disfavour of the top 4 leagues!
I argeed with you. The current UEFA Cup becomes the loser bracket for CL league. The Cup Winners' Cup at least meant something for the winner.
The UEFA Cup was never meant to be on par with the Champion's Cup, so of course it's the 'lesser' prize compared to the Champion's League...it's always been that from the start. Of course the teams in the UEFA Cup want to win the Cup when they're in it. Saying that the UEFA Cup means nothing to the clubs playing for it = being out of touch with reality. Cup Winners Cup had a lot of teams that hadn't won their National Cup either. I see some people talking about how this Cup was better or something, when the same thing applies as their problem with the Champion's League ("huuuuuhhh those teams aren't even the champion of their league")
Whilst strictly speaking true, it's not the same. In the CWC any non-Cup Winners represented were there because they had reached the final of their domestic cup competition but lost to a team that had already qualified for Europe by other means. At least they could lay claim to having made the final of a competition. Not exactly the same as "we finished fourth".
Am I the only person here who likes the Champions League? (even if it is a misnomer) One very good reason to have a competition that is more than Champions is because the competition doesn't take place with the team that won the championship anyway, it occurs a year later. I'd love to see a real European Clubs Championship with 24 teams divided into 4 groups of 6. The top 2 teams advance to playoffs and the bottom 2 teams get relegated out of Europe. Top 4 finishers in each bracket get to stay in the Clubs Championship again the next year. Now take the top 8 finishers in the UEFA cup and they are promoted to the ECC. And don't weigh the UEFA cup. The UEFA Cup is challenged by the league champion and the cup champion of each UEFA member and if one of those is already in the ECC just replace the club with the next in line. Sure this will hurt a lot of leagues where you will have the Man Us and Real Madrids who will be bolstered by 10+ extra paydates a year, but even if they weren't those two clubs would still dominate their leagues because they are the richest period. The advantage is that the fan will get to see more games played at the highest level and there is something a little closer to a Eurowide league.
Eh? No it doesn’t - the current champions of the various league take part in the Champions League during which they are champion of those leagues. For instance, Arsenal are the current Champions of England and as such took part in this season’s Champions League. Given that in most nations a cabal of three, maximum four clubs per league has any realistic chance of winning a domestic league championship, you would just be accelerating the process by which the rich get richer and the world of football gets more and more plastic, contrived and boring. But it’s not UEFA’s job to actively help them get richer. It is their job to ensure that the money generated by football is, at least to whatever extent they can manage, used for the universal benefit of the game they govern. It’s all very 2001 of you to be that flippant upon the gross damage such a competition could do to the domestic leagues that all fans in the countries concerned value more than anything. But it’s all getting a bit old, quite frankly. The answer to the question of how to get a broad, healthy, interesting, involving and inclusive footballing structure in Europe is not to be found in further inflating the mouldy old bubble the rich few sit in. It is to be found in making competition interesting. Which is no kind of advantage at all. “At the highest level”? What is that? As far as I can recall, that means the sort of games we are now seeing in the Champions League. Knock-out, do-or-die, balls-on-the-line, toe-to-toe face-offs. How wanky would a league be where all but four of the teams have nothing to play for and nowhere to go by Christmas? So great - that pointless mid-table, end-of-season encounter features the Milan and Bayern reserve teams instead of, say, Charlton and Manchester City, but come on … People need to get over the crap notion that big names make for big entertainment as a matter of default.
Matt: is that a common, or even occasional, attitude of English fans, or is it more likely to be an American thing? Here, we frequently encounter sports fans saying that they like World Cup soccer ("soccer at the highest level") but otherwise don't care for the sport. In defense of the Champions League, thanks to a videotape of that Bayern/Arsenal match from a couple years back, I've overcome a life-long struggle with insomnia.
Well, I am sure the mentality exists here too, so I would have to say it is occasional. But in general it is not the English who propagate such views. We tend to be a bit more homely (some would say parochial) about our footie. European football is a big, big thing, don’t get me wrong, but that’s part of the problem - it’s deemed to be special and a reward for achievement and that is what it should remain. It should not be everyday and mundane. It tends to be “new” fans of the sport that look at it from a perspective of “If Real Madrid play AC Milan every week then I am getting the best football possible, because they are Real Madrid and AC Milan and this is a Very Good Thing.”
I guess you really enjoyed watchign Brondby play Milan or Stockholm play Munich. Those are great games... Its infinitely more entertaining to watch Madrid play Manchester United than it is to watch Manchester City play anybody. But I guess you would think say the NBA would be more entertaining if every state in the US had their own league. I'm really trying to figure out how squeezing more great players onto the field at one time doesn't make a better product. Haven't you seen Arsenal play this year with players like Pires and Henry making magical runs or isn't it impressive to watch how Figo, Zidane, and Raul create for each other? Er I guess you would rather watch Burmingham play Sunderland after all it is the quality its just that it is...er what exactly do you enjoy about this game? The game has been moving forward. The Champions Cup was a horrible competition because we got to see game after game after game where an obviously weaker team played 11 men behind the ball and went for a 0-0 draw followed by a 0-0 draw followed by PKs. And I'm sorry but winning the league the previous year does NOT mean you are good or worthy of being a champion the next year. Although I'm sure you would have liked to watch the 99 Bulls represent the NBA or what if Bayer Leverkusen had not choked last year? Would those be the quality of teams you would like to see play? They are real representative. The idea that because a team won last year means they are anything this year is presumption at best. They might be or they might have last their top players or they might have been a fluke, but they are definitely not guaranteed to be the best team from their country in the year they will be representing their country and that is 100% fact.