Let's go back to League Champions only... Every League Champion in Europe goes into a hat with no seedings and no qualifying rounds.... and NO group stages..... Some team in Latvia could get Real Madrid in the first round In every round there would be matches worthy of a television audience and the minnows get the chance of a record attendance and good gate receipts. The League runners-up and cup winners go in the UEFA Cup.... and that's it. If a team in Spain comes third and doesn't win their domestic cup, then they don't get a chance to play in Europe..... If UEFA are serious about supporting the game then they will stop supporting the richer clubs from the larger footballing nations and level the playing field.... Sure it's radical changes..... but I feel this would indeed be for the good of football. A lot of the clubs on stock exchanges, with multi-million pound players, would stumble at the first hurdle. The Inter Totto Cup could still be run in the summer to give punters something to bet on...... with maybe a place in the UEFA Cup -- if they need a team to make up the numbers. If byes are needed..... then let's make it fair and put all teams in a hat with an equal chance of getting the bye. Give the sport back to the people! That's my thoughts....
I think that one of the reasons that the CL is currently set up like it is has to do with the biggest clubs threatening to split off and form their own European league. If they did that, they'd draw ALL the biggest TV contracts, etc. and it would REALLY hurt the rest of football (since we're talking about Europe, I'll use their term even though I'm American). Like it or not, the biggest players do have a lot of power and they're never going to go along with something like this. Also, I'd rather see the 32 or 64 BEST teams in Europe in some sort of competition rather than seeing 6 or 8 powerhouses pound the rest of the league champions.
And those clubs are wrong. At Ajax we have mister v Praag. He chats with his G14 friends and always tries to convince us that the Euroleague is inevitable. BS! You have to make a choice. Are we in it for the money or do we also have some sort empathy with the game of football? If so they should stop being so greedy and start thinking of better solutions. If the Euroleague will go through (which I seriously doubt) many European clubs will lose fans over it. Besides that, if we should see trouble like in Italy... bye bye football! There will never be a Euroleague. 1. It doesn't add much to the game for the supporters (I'm not talking about the people at home) 2. You shouldn't underestimate the power of a lot of these hardcore groups, especially if they would work together in an effort to stop the Euroleague. This is very well possible since most fans in Southern Europe considder the national title more important as European football. In Northern Europe most fans don't want it because it would take away the opportunity of travelling a lot (and I think this goed for Southern Europe as well) 3. The other clubs have a right too. Unlike American sports where teams are moved around and started up out of the blue people have great emotional ties with their club and they are backed in their ideas by most supporters from the bigger clubs that their clubs have a right to be around and compete against bigger teams too. This whole idea is not in the best interest of football but in the interest of making absurd amounts of money.
Getting Radical Again OK.... Let the 22 biggest clubs go off and have their Euro League, Super League or whatever..... All the other teams in Europe have fans too and they are interested in seeing their teams play. If the richest clubs slip away on their own, then at least some other teams will get a chance to put their name on the official UEFA European Cup. The grass roots fans might even boycott the TV games of the Super League, which would more than likely only be available on Pay TV. If there aren't enough subscribers to break even.... after paying riculous amounts for TV rights to the EuroLeague..... sponsors will drop out, share prices will fall..... and the mighty will tumble too. On the other hand, UEFA could sponsor the Euro League..... with the winner of the Champions League knockout and UEFA Cup moving into the EuroLeague and the bottom two dropping back to their national leagues.... More coal on the fire.
do you know UEFA has already dropped the second group stage,starting next season? uh? and against the will of the G14!