Failing to have yet really materialized, the threat, regularly agitated, of creation of a “closed” League by some big European clubs obliges the Union of the European associations of football (UEFA) to always make a little more concessions to these. According to The team from February 10, the continental body plans to adopt in March, during an executive committee, a new reform of its lucrative Champions League.
From 2024, the current format (32 teams in the first round, in eight groups of four) is supposed to be replaced by another: a championship of 36 teams, with a ranking established on the basis of 10 matches ( without a round-trip match), making it possible to define the eighth-finalists.
Complicated to follow? Yes, but the motivations for this reform are to be sought elsewhere than in the readability of this revisited “C1”. For UEFA, it is about offering clubs more matches, and therefore more television rights to market.
With a well-targeted objective: to thwart the prospect of a “Superleague”, this closed league project that the biggest European clubs threaten to put in place to always keep the same participating teams – the most profitable – without maintaining the current principle of qualification for European Cups via national championships.
The red rag of a split shaken for two decades
It has been more than two decades since certain heavyweights of the continent wave the red rag of a split: Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Juventus Turin, Bayern Munich in the lead. Each time, UEFA falters, recalls its principles, but ends up conceding ground to their demands.
In 1998, there was the ephemeral project of the Media Partners group, a company specializing in television rights. A year later, lobbying worked for these powerful people, grouped together in the “G14”. The former Champion Clubs’ Cup then opens for the 3rd and 4th of the major national championships (England, Italy, Germany and Spain); to the detriment of the national winners of small nations, summoned to go through several preliminary rounds to invite themselves to the big table.
Following the G14, the ECA (European Club Association) continues today to defend the specific interests of its members. In October 2020, the Sky Sports media unveiled the outlines of a “European Superleague”, with 16 or 18 participants, a system of promotion-relegation to the sidelines, and a 5.1 billion euro cake to share thanks to to supposed TV rights.
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