The Champions League; presented to football fans as the ‘greatest club football competition in the world’, and seemingly rammed down our throats by Sky Sports from September to May, when many of us fans simply don’t care.
The name is a falsehood in itself. The competition does not solely contain the champions of the respective UEFA member’s top divisions, nor is it in a league format. That’s just the one of my frustrations with the vastly overrated tournament which much of the football world appears to be obsessed with.
My first major gripe with the competition is its format. It is structured in such a way that it reduces the excitement generated by the matches, as well as increasing the obscene amounts of money earned by the clubs participating, which in turn enhances the ‘rich poor’ gap within football creating a monopoly effect.
The Group Stage of every Champions League is largely boring, with it usually being possible to predict around 14 of the 16 teams who will progress to the next stage resulting in many games being dead rubbers as two teams run away with the group. Naturally, there are always exceptions to the rule but all too often the group is wrapped up after the fourth or fifth matches.
This needs to change. The Group Stage needs to be wiped out to give some life to the initial stages of the competition and this can be very simply done, by reverting to the classic format of the European Cup with two legged knockout ties all the way to the final.
Such a system involving 32 clubs would mean the teams reaching the final would only play a total of 9 games, comparing to the current 13 games which Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund endured last season. The format would be simple, as well as exciting if no seeding system was implemented, and instead an ‘FA Cup style’ draw was made at the beginning of each round.
Tantalising ties involving the true European giants so early in the competition would add to the drama as well as giving the smaller teams a chance of progressing further if a favourable draw ensued. Even the less glamorous ties would have added interest, because I’m sure no one would care about BATE Borisov vs Shakhtar Donetsk if it was a dead rubber, but if it was a closely fought two legged tie some people may take notice of it.
Reducing the number of games being played would also lower the amounts of revenue attained by the clubs involved, creating less of a monopoly affect and thus making European football more competitive and preventing the same few sides from each country playing in the Champions League year after year. This would address a key issue in football, financial inequality which the recently introduced Financial Fair play has not yet improved, and will likely make the problem worse. But that’s another issue for another day.
The final key problem with the Champions League is its entry requirements from certain countries. In England, Germany and Spain for example, teams finishing third and fourth in the domestic leagues qualify for the tournament, causing the domestic cups to be neglected. The value of being in the Champions League is just too great, meaning that the teams put all their focus in finishing in the top 3 or 4 every single year rather than challenging for the cups.
This removes the fundamental principle of football- winning trophies. It pains me to see teams aiming to finish 4th in the league rather than attempt to win the domestic cups, and it would sicken me to see Sunderland (if we were ever in such a position) to give up on the FA or League Cup for the sake of Champions League qualification which would only ever lead to Group Stage of Last 16 elimination.
Instead of the top 3 or 4 teams in the domestic leagues qualifying, there should be at least one spot (in countries with 3 or more teams able to qualify for the Champions League) reserved to the winner of the country’s largest and most prestigious domestic cup, such as the FA Cup, Coppa Italia or DFB Pokal. This would breathe more life into these tournaments as well as giving other clubs a chance of getting into the Champions League, as realistically most teams cannot dream of a top 4 finish.
So the solutions to what I perceive as an overly prolonged, false and monopolised competition are actually pretty simple:
– The format needs to be reverted a straightforward knockout system
– There needs to be less money available to the teams participating so to reduce the inequality in football
– Qualification can be attained through winning domestic cups, not just through league position
Will any of these ever happen though? No. Not if Platini and co are running UEFA, who are too interested in lining their pockets with the filthy lucre, as is just about everyone else running world football.
We can dream though.
The Sunderland Supporter 