Great news for the next Leicester City-style English Cinderella story – not so good for the likes of Celtic and Dundalk.
It appears Uefa are on the verge of guaranteeing the powerful Big Four leagues 16 spots in the group stages of the Champions League.
That means that HALF of the 32 spots will be given over to the qualifiers from England, Spain, Italy and Germany. They will do away with historical merit as a factor from the 2018-19 season onwards.
This season Leicester City, Tottenham, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen, Juventus and Napoli have qualified directly to the group stage.
Under the new structures Manchester City, Villareal, Borussia Monchengladbach, Roma (who are all int he final play-off round) and a fourth Italian team would qualify automatically for the group stages – meaning five less spots for qualifiers through the play-offs.
From 2018-19, top 4 leagues will have 16 guaranteed spots in CL. UEFA ExCo to approve late August. Rich get richer. #onepercenters
— Gabriele Marcotti (@Marcotti) August 15, 2016
Re: Champions League revamp, some big clubs wanted more: wild card for historical merit, weekend games, co-ownership of competition
— Gabriele Marcotti (@Marcotti) August 15, 2016
On Wednesday night in Aviva Stadium Dundalk take on Legia Warzaw in the first leg of their final play-off tie for a spot in the group stages – an achievement that would dwarf anything that a League of Ireland club has ever achieved in terms of financial reward.
That is one of 10 final play-off fixtures. Presumably under the new system the number of spots available to qualifiers would be halved.
Credit: Wikipedia
Other clubs involved in play-offs are former European champions like Celtic, Porto, Monaco and Ajax – the opportunities for these clubs to qualify for the group stages will be halved to satisfy the never-ending demands of Europe’s increasingly powerful top four leagues.
Seems pretty shitty. But at least it should ward off the calls for a Super League until the next time the ‘super clubs’ want to make football more profitable and less interesting.
