Real Madrid has won the Champions League seven times since the late nineties but only 3 times did they qualify for the competition as domestic champions. (Photo by Helios de la Rubia/Real Madrid via Getty Images)
Two weeks ago my Forbes colleague Steve Price reported that UEFA was considering the reintroduction of a third club tournament as an adjunct to the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League.
It has now been confirmed by European Club Association president Andrea Agnelli that a proposal will be presented to the UEFA executive committee for approval.
The plan is to increase the representation at the group stages to 96 teams from the present 80 effective the 2021/22 season and we can anticipate little in the way of resistance to the idea.
The present 32-team group stage of the Champions League would remain unchanged. The Europa League format would match the Champions League and that would reduce the group stage by 16 teams.
The Europa League reduction would be compensated by the addition of 32 teams in the group stage of the yet to be named addition to the UEFA competition family.
Up until 1999, there was the UEFA Champions League, the European Cup Winners’ Cup, and the UEFA Cup. The ECWC comprised domestic cup winners (sometimes the runners-up) and the format was a straight home-and-home knockout.
At the end of the 1999 season, a decision was made to integrate the Cup Winners’ Cup into an expanded UEFA Cup which subsequently morphed into the Europa League that we have today.
The problem now is trying to shoehorn over 230 teams into two competitions that both require group stages and it has created an early season bottleneck of ever more complex playoffs.
What’s worse is that by the time September rolls around each season over 66% of the teams that qualified for European competition have already been eliminated.
Agnelli did not comment on any proposed qualifying criteria for the three competitions so we will have to see what UEFA has in mind.
Up until the nineties, only league champions and defending European Cup champions were good enough to play in Europe’s premier competition.
It is more than 25 years since the group stage format was introduced along with the name change (European Cup to Champions League) and the introduction of multiple entries from selected leagues.
The reasons for the changes were simple. The group format meant more games which meant higher rights fees from broadcasters on account of more inventory. The addition of non-champion teams from popular leagues (in general, countries with large populations) also helped drive up the asking price for broadcast rights while helping to alleviate the concern of big clubs (non-champions) of missing out on a big payday.
My wish would be to return at least one competition to a home-and-home knockout competition format (no group stage) that formed the basis of the initial success of European competition from 1955 through to the nineties.
However, the chance of that hope coming to fruition is pretty much zip to nil. And that brings me to another option – a halfway house.
UEFA would be foolish to add more teams to the mix given that nearly 240 teams from over 50+ countries already qualify. (The numbers fluctuate slightly every year based on a number of unique factors.)
So let’s assume that there will be three competitions and the concept of teams that fail to make the group stage of the top two competitions get another crack at a lower level is maintained.
Here is how each competition might break down.
UEFA has a chance to return the Champions League to its European Cup roots in terms of qualification criteria (league champions only) while maintaining the group stage format. A true Champions League.
The shorthand version would be the 16 winners from the top 16 ranked UEFA leagues would be granted automatic spots in the eight groups.
The remaining champion teams – around 38 – would be required to navigate playoff rounds until the last 16 standing joined the automatic entrants. From there the competition would follow the present format.
The 20+ teams knocked out prior to the group stage would drop down to the new competition that we will call “New-Comp.”
For discussion’s sake let’s maintain the Europa League moniker for the next tier of competition. Stick with the present 80 qualifying teams with 16 automatically qualifying for the group stage and the 64 other teams narrowing to 16 group qualifiers through a playoff format.
“New Comp” would have around 100 teams qualifying directly and another 70 or so dropping in from the two senior competitions. The 170 teams would be reduced to 32 group stage teams through playoffs.
More games for broadcasters and fans, playoffs streamlined, more teams involved in European competition post-September – all these boxes are ticked.
Most importantly the winner of the Champions League would actually be as described on the box.
Regarding the future of @UEFA Club Competitions, Andrea Agnelli informed members:
“Pending approval of the @UEFA ExCo, the ‘green light’ has been given to introduce a third competition, bringing the overall number of clubs to 96, as of the 2021/22 season” #ECAGeneralAssembly pic.twitter.com/W8tXL1pdsN
— ECA (@ECAEurope) September 11, 2018
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