New CL proposals: “Swiss system” favoured by clubs

[Blueknows]

I don't know the process behind reducing the teams in the PL, but I can't imagine that being something that would be agreed by any club not consistently in the CL.

I can't imagine many fans would be happy seeing their team play the same European opponents every year, with a reduced PL, an abolished League Cup etc. They might get more money initially, but if fans don't want to watch it, then they wont be getting vast sums from broadcasting deals for very long.

Its the smaller clubs Id feel sorry for especially abolishing fa cup replays which they rely on for income playing a bigger club

 

[Blueknows]

Great idea , add more non-deserving teams into the equasion, and bore the arses of everybody for longer.

Chamions League and hangers on Cup ?

or why not just have 32 champions of all European leagues with the same format as is now ?...then we can really call it the champions league


...are there 32 European countries ?

 

[Gazza]

Going by the co-efficients; - we'd get Bayern, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus & PSG home and away.
Liverpool/United would get Rhyl, Upper Volta B, Tromso, Port Vale & St Mirren.

 

[Fiftyyearsandcounting]

36 professional leagues in Europe. Take out 4 based on some formula and just the winners play H & A on a straight knockout basis. Has this been tried before?
It does mean R32, R16, R8, R4 = 8 games + the final. If that doesn't raise enough money to fill some official's Swiss bank account,then include the second place team and the 1st round of 64 is winners against 2nd from different league.

 

[jrb]

Finish 6th in the PL and get a CL place.

At least finishing 4th is closer to 1st. ;-)

 

[Parisian]

In other words, the current CL format is shite, and UEFA wants to try to reinvigorate the competition.

They want more "big games" to get more viewership and more sponsors money. This money being redistributed to the big clubs with, of course, an historical coefficient to make things more "fair". And you can't be relegated easily which means you get a substancial annuity.

 

[domalino]

or why not just have 32 champions of all European leagues with the same format as is now ?...then we can really call it the champions league


...are there 32 European countries ?

Because that would be shit.

I don't know why people keep pretending they're offended by the name Champions League, or they'd rather watch fucking Qarabag play Molde than Dortmund-PSG.

The point is to have the best 32 teams in Europe compete to decide who's best.

It's not the 1950's anymore, Serbia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia (doesn't even exist anymore), Hungary etc. don't have great teams to take on the competition, they're just a collection of league 2 and conference quality sides which would either play out boring draws between themselves or get twatted 10-0 on aggregate.

 

[dickie davies]

48 teams qualifying for the group stage
16 leagues of 3 teams
The top two qualify for the knockout stage, where anyone can draw anyone

The 16 that finish bottom can fall into the Europa

 

[cjn]

Am I the only one who mostly just likes the format as is? I have no interest in watching the champion of Switzerland get destroyed by Madrid so the idea of bringing new leagues into it doesn't appeal to me at all. An idea I've seen that could potentially be interesting though would be reducing the group stages into just two large, but still seeded, groups. Higher seeds would still have a big advantage, but it would introduce a little more randomness into the scheduling which could produce some more drama earlier into the tournament. But really the goal for me is still to see the best teams compete in the knockout stages.

 

[bluesteel]

I wish the sheikhs would fuck the FA and UEFA off, invite 17 other clubs to a breakaway league with a new governing body (one without corruption).

All UK home games to be 3pm on a Saturday.

I’d start going again then.

City
PSG
Real Madrid
Barca
Ajax
United
AC Milan
Bayern Munich
Dortmund
Inter Milan
Monaco
Porto
Liverpool
Chelsea
Athletico Madrid
Celtic
Arsenal
Spurs

No relegation.

 

[Oyster28catcher]

Better still, have a European cup, call it the UEFA Cup and run it like the FA Cup. Draw from hats. Regional rounds until the last 32. Seeded is okay, based on their national team rankings, if need be. Exclude all Champions or domestic cup winners.

UEFA Cup Winner's Cup: All FA or League Cup teams face each other across Europe. They can also qualify as for the below Proper, UEFA Champions League.

Then every Champion of every UEFA league starts at qualifying and the best 6 join a league and the winner of that league aand the second placed team play a final at the venue roughly halfway between the two clubs. Proper, UEFA Champions League.

The UEFA Invitational Cup. This is a tournament to buy a piece of silverware. Clubs are welcome to enter but must pay a considerable amount. All money will be distrubted to the rival club of the one that enters. This will form the basis of the new UEFA Fair's Fare Play.

UEFA Super Cup. The winners of the UEFA Champions League must face the winner of UEFA Cup Winner's Cup. SHould one team have won both, they will face Macclesfield Town or Bury FC. Whichever club is the oldest and in the most dire of straights will both play and host the game. That's super, right?

 

[its a Barm]

Booooo

 

[Ric]

 

[blueparrot]

Can’t see the whole article, but if it’s one league of 32 do the top 8 then go into a knockout?
If thats the case I quite like the sound of it, sounds much more interesting than the current group stage.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

nonsense.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

I don't really mind as long as qualification for it in the first place is based on merit. But if they start introducing a system where certain teams get in automatically, fuck that.

 

[rowarta]

Can’t see the whole article, but if it’s one league of 32 do the top 8 then go into a knockout?
If thats the case I quite like the sound of it, sounds much more interesting than the current group stage.

Uefa is to hold talks this week on a proposed new Champions League format that would involve clubs playing ten different opponents in the group stage in a dramatic shake-up of the competition.


The “Swiss system” is understood to be Uefa’s favourite among several proposed reforms of the competition and an answer to the threat of a breakaway super league as it would lead to more group matches between teams from the big European leagues.


The model, to be used from 2024, would mean four more Champions League matches a season than under the existing system where there are six group games, putting more pressure on the fixture calendar. It would almost certainly mean English clubs in Europe would have to drop out of the League Cup and possibly result in an end to FA Cup replays.


Although the proposed new format may be complicated for fans to grasp initially it has the benefit of allowing more matches between the bigger teams and fewer meaningless group matches.


The “Swiss system” is often used in chess and other sports, and would mean 32 or 36 clubs in a single division. They would not all play each other, but a random draw would select ten matches — five at home and five away — for each club against opponents of varying strength based on seeding. The existing system has 32 clubs split into eight groups of four who play each other home and away.


The points from those ten matches for each club would be registered in a single league table, from which the top 16 would progress to the knockout rounds. The top club would play the team who finished 16th and the second-placed team play the one that finished 15th, and so on.


Significantly, the European Clubs’ Association (ECA) and the European Leagues organisation both think that there is potential merit in the Swiss system. It is understood there is confidence that the format would be even more attractive to broadcasters due to a more exciting group phase.


Uefa is expected to present details of the proposed new model to European football officials over the next two weeks.

“Although it might be more difficult for fans to understand at first, another advantage is that the group stage should be much more exciting than it is now. Every match should be significant because every place in the top 16 will be valuable in terms of the opponent in the next round and in terms of prize money.


“There is also an incentive of being in the 17th to 24th positions as they would go into in the Europa League knockout rounds.”


David Gill, England’s Uefa vice-president and treasurer of the European governing body, has declined to discuss the reform options but said that there were some “exciting” proposals and raised the question of whether Premier League clubs in Europe could still play in the League Cup if there are four more European matches.


He told The Times last week: “The FA has already reduced the number of FA Cup replays, [but] what happens with the League Cup? That question has been around for many years, and can compensation be looked at to help the EFL clubs? Why not look at that and perhaps exclude the teams competing in Europe and only have the other domestic teams playing?”


Gill also stressed that Uefa was determined to ensure that qualification for the Champions League remained overwhelmingly via domestic competitions.


Lars-Christer Olsson, the chairman of the European League group covering 29 nations, said the Swiss system would be more acceptable than that put forward by the ECA in 2019 calling for four groups of eight clubs, meaning 14 group games.


“The new proposals are much more realistic than the one in 2019 but what is important is protecting the access list to all the European competitions and ensuring the gap in financial distribution is not widened between the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League,” Olsson said.


How the ‘Swiss system’ could work in the Champions League


● There would be 32 or 36 teams in one division that is split into four pots of seeds


● A draw takes place to allocate opponents for each club to play ten matches. A top-seeded team would face two other top seeds, three each from pots two and three, and two more teams from the fourth seeds. Half the matches would be at home, half away.


● Results feed into a league table of all 32 teams with the top 16 going through to the knock-out rounds. The top of the league would play the team finishing 16th, second place v 15th and so on. The eight teams finishing in 17th to 24 places would go into the Europa League knockout competition.


● The final semi-finalists (or quarter-finalists) would qualify automatically for the following year’s Champions League.


The Times used a random draw generator to draw up potential opponents for two English clubs based on the seeding pots for this season’s Champions League (no English opponents permitted). It produced this outcome:


Liverpool (pot 1) would have matches against Real Madrid (pot 1), Paris Saint-Germain (pot 1), Borussia Dortmund (pot 2), Shakhtar Donetsk (pot 2), Ajax (pot 2), RB Leipzig (pot 3), Lazio (pot 3), Krasnodar (pot 3), Club Bruges (pot 4) and Rennes (pot 4).


A random draw for Manchester City (pot 2) would result in matches against Bayern Munich (pot 1), Porto (pot 1), Real Madrid (pot 1), Barcelona (pot 2), Borussia Dortmund (pot 2), Dynamo Kiev (pot 3), Inter Milan (pot 3), Lokmotiv Moscow (pot 4), Borussia Mönchengladbach (pot 4) and Ferencvaros (pot 4)

 

[Ban-jani]

It’ll be good for us. We’d likely qualify directly most years and even if we finished 9th-24th, we’d likely win the play off game.

The problem is this’ll move a lot away from English football and the PL and you just know UEFA will sort some sort of additional benefit for “history clubs”.

 

[Gazza]

The “Swiss system” is often used in chess and other sports, and would mean 32 or 36 clubs in a single division. They would not all play each other, but a random draw would select ten matches — five at home and five away — for each club against opponents of varying strength based on seeding. The existing system has 32 clubs split into eight groups of four who play each other home and away.

Yeah, right.

 

[Sir peace frog]

bent as fuck