While fans, clubs, national associations and Governments united yesterday to voice their disgust about the European Super League UEFA slipped out their 2024-2027 revamp of the Champions League.
The trophy may be the same but it is nothing like the competition that Celtic won in 1967 after nine matches. Up until the early nineties the same format served the sport pretty well before commercialisation took hold.
Plans for the Super League are the natural extension of those aims, it just seems that one group of clubs have accelerated the process put in place by UEFA.
From 2024 the Champions League will increase from 32 to 36 clubs, the format isn’t yet clear but each club will play 10 matches against 10 different opponents. The home and away group phase will be history but five home and five away matches will be generated.
Over the course of 180 matches all 36 teams will be ranked, the top eight will advance to a knock-out stage while the teams ranked from 9 to 24 will play-off in two-legged ties to make up the eight remaining places in the last 16 which will be traditional two-legged knock-out ties.
There looks to be an awful lot of matches (television hours) to get down to 16 clubs, in 1967 that was the second round stage.
One key change is that more four clubs from one nation can take part, it’s not ridiculous to think that 20 of the top 24 places in the 36 team tournament will be from the top/richest leagues.
Super League or not the chances of a Benfica, Ajax or Celtic are being almost eliminated one way or another.
1. Lost in the outrage of the superleague nonsense, UEFA confirmed the new setup for the CL from 24/25.
– 36 teams playing in one big league
– every team plays 10 games v 10 different teams
– The top 8 qualify for the last 16
– 9th-24th playoff for the other 8 last 16 places
— Moravcik67 (@Moravcik67_) April 19, 2021
3. How this plays out will depend on the access list drawn up for the competitions. But on first glance it just looks like another grab of the additional spots for the bigger nations.
Also important will be restrictions put on number of clubs from a country.
— Moravcik67 (@Moravcik67_) April 19, 2021
5. The Europa and Conference Leagues will stay at 32 teams, but also move to one big league, with teams playing 8 and 6 games respectively. Not sure what the reason is for the lower amount of games.
Both may move to 36 teams at some point in the future.
— Moravcik67 (@Moravcik67_) April 19, 2021
7. They created the monster by pandering to these clubs for 25 years. Now they’re horrified that the monster has turned on them.
Football has reached a hideous logical conclusion. And two of the bodies who have done the most damange – Sky and UEFA – will no doubt shriek loudest.
— Moravcik67 (@Moravcik67_) April 19, 2021
It’s supposed to be balanced, with each team facing a mix of different strength opposition.
— Moravcik67 (@Moravcik67_) April 19, 2021
180 games to cut 12 teams from 36 is on its own insane
— Paul (@EK28992) April 19, 2021
