Michel Platini determined to change the Champions League

By: Bob | August 28th, 2007

You can’t fault Michel Platini for trying. The UEFA boss is eager to bring change to the Champions League and to diversify the pool of teams in the competition. After having his proposal to limit the number of teams from any single country to three rejected, Platini is pushing to have the winners of the domestic cups in England, Spain and Italy receive an automatic spot in the Champions League.

The proposal, which reportedly has the support of the football federations in England and Italy, would see the top three teams from the three countries still qualify for the competition with the cup winner from each also earning a spot.

This is an interesting idea with the thought being that it would increase the significance of the domestic cups and that it could lead to some new faces in the Champions League – but probably not on a regular basis.

In England, for example, only twice in the past 19 FA Cup competitions have a club other than Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal or Liverpool won. In Italy, Roma, Inter and AC Milan have won four of the past Copa Italia competitions. Spain’s Copa del Rey is the exception with neither Barcelona nor Real Madrid having won the tournament in the past decade and seemingly a new team capturing it every year.

What do you think? Would this be a good change for the Champions League and for the domestic cups?

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Category: Champions League, World Football

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Nolan

I would like to see the Cup Winners Cup make a comeback.
nigel bray

There should not be a champions league in the first place. You all got conned into it. Its a rip off. But most footy fans are dummys anyway
Jan

Adam: only the cup winner not the runner up would get the CL spot. Different to the current format, where the runner up would still get the UEFA Cup spot.
Shazback

I believe that the Champions League in it's current format is working well. Sure, it's unfair on teams from poorer leagues, and also doesn't respect the notion of "champions" league, but it is what it aimed to be after 1993 : the competition with the best clubs in europe.

I think that Platini should resurrect the Cup Winner's Cup. 2 european competitions are hardly enough, and the Cup Winner's Cup could be done in such a manner that only 1 club from the "big 3" go in, and 2, 3 or 4 clubs from smaller leagues play in it. This would help smaller leagues (France, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey etc.) to get straonger financially, by letting teams compete in a european competition even if they are 4th or 5th in their domestic league, or if the win the domestic cup.

With 3 European competitions, the Champions League should stay as it is, IMO : the best clubs from the best leagues competing against each other. The UEFA Cup should stay the "second" european trophy, with the teams that are knocked out of the Champions League competing in it. The Cup Winners Cup, however, could be a direct round robin elimination, with more clubs in eastern europe, so that upsets are more likely, and matches are more intense, as well as serving a "balancing" of leagues function.
Chris

Can't see it happening, the big clubs all want a slice of that Champions League money and if they miss out for one or two seasons that'll bring a European Super League that much closer. The English FA supports it because they don't run the Premier League. None of the big clubs are going to sit around and become the next Leeds United.
Adam

*to

loose to(i missed to) champions of England

in my above comment
Adam

Bob,
I was about to write article on the same...but you stole my idea (plagiarism :P). :)

It will be good for small clubs like West Ham or Millwall who were in FA cup finals. It will also help them financially given the amount of money involved in CL.

But then concept of "CHAMPIONS" league wont hold true. Suppose next year team like Sheffield Utd(which plays in 2nd division) reaches the final of FA cup and they loose champions of England Chelsea (if they finish 1st) then Sheffield Utd will be given Champions League birth instead of Arsenal (like this year if they come 4th).

That means (from above example) a team which is not good enough to participate in country's 1st division football will be competing with best clubs all across Europe. Also it will be more interesting to watch Arsenal playing against Real Madrid rather than Sheffield Utd against Madrid (since it will be invariably one sided...just my assumption, I know football is very much unpredictable).

On the other hand, it will also revive the fortunes of domestic cup competitions. At least there will be distribution of money amongst the poorer clubs which is one good thing.
Jon

Well, at least he's trying to change it. It's not the ideal solution, but it's better than nothing, and certainly better than the obvious current mess and joke that is the CL.
J

This is a great idea. How does it work, though if the teams double up? If Chelsea wins the FA Cup and the Premiership, does the 4th place team still get into the CL Qualifying stages?