You recognize what they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Unless you’re UEFA, of course, in which case, if it ain’t broke, wreck it your self so that you can put it lower back collectively in a much shoddier fashion. On Monday, the governing physique released a video hosted by using former Blue Peter presenter Ayo Akinwolere detailing the structure modifications that the Champions League will endure from subsequent season onwards. The script would possibly as properly have read, ‘Here’s a mess we made earlier’.
Starting in 2024/25, the premier competition in European football, and its pastier siblings, the Europa League and Europa Conference League, will do away with group ranges entirely. Instead, they will be replaced in every occasion by using a single 36-team league table. Participating clubs will then be drawn to play eight other sides in the division, based on seeded pots, besides in the Conference League, where every crew will solely face six opponents. So far, so unnecessarily complex.
In the Champions and Europa Leagues, after four home and four away matches, the top eight clubs in this new monolithic division automatically go thru to the closing sixteen Teams who end between ninth and 24th will contest a knockout play-off round for the honour of joining, while the peasants left languishing the bottom twelve will be despatched packing like Kirk van Houten from the cracker factory. From the last 16 onwards, it’s enormously a lot the same old, identical ancient – two legged ties and a single showpiece final.
UEFA’s reasoning behind their surprising shift in route is no longer totally clear. In their fancy clip, they lean heavily on buzz phrases and phrases like ‘fast-changing’, ‘unpredictable’, and ‘thrilling new future’, however you may forgive more cynical onlookers from suspecting that it has more to do with another voguish phenomenon, ‘TV rights money’.
Regardless of intention, this feels like a convoluted regression for continental competition in Europe. For decades, there used to be nothing wrong with the Champions League. You can argue about the injustices at a domestic level that rendered it an inaccessible dreamland for the extensive majority of clubs, however as for the match itself, the thing was once simple, pulsating, and enthralling. It afforded each an arena for heavyweight slug-fests and scope for the extraordinary upset right here and there along the way. It trusted in the nice of its product as its USP, and it thrived because of it.
