Champions League restructuring

[LeeB]

This is football eating itself.

[aj2k77]

Galatasaray vs Tottenham, Wednesday night, 8th vs 7th, neither with a chance of qualifying after 6 games, still 4 matches to play. Sounds utterly pointless. They'll probably have something stupid like the top 8 from each division qualify and make it almost impossible for anyone decent to get knocked out.

[fbriai]

10 teams playing each other in a ''division'' is going to lead to a hell of a lot of shit games where there is nothing at stake.

Not much change then? They could sell it as, 'Even more games you couldn't give a toss about'!

[cdbearsfan]

If I understand the format correctly, it seems like there should be fewer dead rubbers. It is so complicated though I might need to get my PhD in quadratic equations first.

[aj2k77]

At least with 6 group games (which I hate btw) you can lose 3 of the first 4 and still have an outside chance of being able to make it through. Game week 5 is crucial and by game week 6 there are a lot of dead rubbers. As you say, now there will be even more dead rubbers and sooner. By game week 8 the majority of the table will be decided. It's a terrible idea. The whole you can't sign a player from another Champions League side, what is the thinking behind that? It will lead to a) Some players being trapped at clubs because they're on a huge wedge and none Champions League clubs cannot afford them b) Champions League sides having to strengthen by hoovering up the remaining talent at non Champions League clubs (Grealish, Maddison etc will become huge targets).

Overall, as usual, it's terribly thought out for football as a whole. 

[aj2k77]

I am commenting without seeing the plans though and just going off a division of 10 idea, is that what they are going with?

[Hookeysmith]

Why upset everything in domestic football to help finance the greedier clubs to shit on them.

Just let all the greedy clubs fuck off and leave the rest of us alone.

Club Cup competitions should be knock out only  - as world cups are 4 years apart international football in leagues is fine

[chrisw1]

I'm sorry but the people & clubs who come up with this stuff are just utter self serving thunder ******.

Talk about killing the goose that laid the golden egg.  Bastards.

[cdbearsfan]

I am commenting without seeing the plans though and just going off a division of 10 idea, is that what they are going with?

I think it is one division of 36... but each team plays ten games. Presumably against ten diferent teams, five at home five away. Based on some seeding formula but I confess not to really understand. They seem to have added a playoff round, too.

So I would guess the best 12 go through automatically, the next eight go into a playoff round. Maybe the four or eight below that would go straight into the Europa League or into another playoff round for that.

All seems a bit Numberwang! at the moment.

[Martin Carruthers]

Why upset everything in domestic football to help finance the greedier clubs to shit on them.

Just let all the greedy clubs fuck off and leave the rest of us alone.

Club Cup competitions should be knock out only  - as world cups are 4 years apart international football in leagues is fine

Agreed - all club cups should be straight knockout. Ideally unseeded.

[LeeB]

Why upset everything in domestic football to help finance the greedier clubs to shit on them.

Just let all the greedy clubs fuck off and leave the rest of us alone.

Club Cup competitions should be knock out only  - as world cups are 4 years apart international football in leagues is fine

Agreed - all club cups should be straight knockout. Ideally unseeded.

Seeding is sanctioned cheating, nothing less.

[rjp]

If they ban transfers from other CL teams then it will mean that those in the CL, who already have much more money than those outside, will hoover up the talent of any club that does the right things and builds a team that can challenge them.  It's another glass ceiling.  They can all get ******.

[Pat Mustard]

It's instructive that it's clubs from leagues that don't get anything like the revenue that the Premier League gets that are pushing for this, and will be interesting to see what English clubs make of something that impacts on the league which is their biggest source of revenue.  Too many so-called top clubs clubs are too reliant on Champions League money - they would be better off pushing for a structure that strengthens their own leagues and makes them more attractive to broadcasters.  Of course, then they would have to give up some of their competitive advantages, so that won't happen.

[OCD]

Why don't they just adopt the NFL approach?

Also, why do they need to scrap the League cup? Why not just opt out of it or play an U23 team so that their kids get experience of senior football. If we were a CL team, I would want to see the latter for us. I don't see why non CL teams should miss out on the chance of a cup final and silverware.

They had better not be doing away with the idea of having to qualify for it either.

[ChicagoLion]

You would hope that the English clubs would see that this is a ruse for the big European clubs to get a bigger slice of the cake, not bake a bigger cake. There is a limit to how much revenue you can squeeze out of the game and the Premier League will see revenue  shrink to accommodate the expanded CL. Of course they will have no relegation from the CL but its financial success is not guaranteed and all they are going to do is make their competitors stronger.

I also think that the new CL will leave UEFA open to unfair competition litigation .