The latest Champions League reform plan is faring higher than a failed club-driven proposal two years in the past, although Europe’s high leagues mentioned they’ve considerations after discussing it on Friday.
UEFA-led talks on approving adjustments for the 2024-25 season are steering away from a conventional group stage towards a single league desk that provides all 36 groups 10 video games every in a variation of the ‘Swiss System’ format created in chess tournaments.
That format guarantees to lift membership prize cash by giving UEFA 180 group-stage video games to promote to broadcasters as an alternative of the present 96.
It additionally wants to search out 4 further midweek slots in an already busy program for home leagues.
“The European Leagues have raised sturdy considerations about extra matchdays of such a versatile system in an already very congested calendar,” the 30-nation group mentioned after an internet assembly.
Entry to the Champions League from home success can also be key for the leagues, who need title winners in mid-ranking nations to get their probability on the largest stage.
The UEFA proposal additionally suggests a number of the further 4 entries when the present 32-team format is expanded may go to groups primarily based on their historic document in European competitions.
Rewarding groups primarily based on their UEFA rating can be a security web for storied members of the influential European Membership Affiliation who don’t qualify on advantage.
European Leagues mentioned its members “additionally questioned the attainable affect of entry (to UEFA competitions) in addition to industrial parts on the sporting and monetary steadiness of home leagues.”
The leagues need extra UEFA prize cash — this season is value nearly 2 billion euros ($2.three billion) to the 32 Champions League groups — directed towards closing the wealth hole between golf equipment in European soccer.
Nonetheless, there’s a extra strong base for progress than the earlier negotiations which collapsed 18 months in the past.
“The imaginative and prescient primarily based on the so-called ‘Swiss Mannequin’ is an enchancment in comparison with the extra radical proposals that emerged in 2019,” the leagues mentioned.
UEFA will transient its 55 member federations on Tuesday on the competitions proposal, which additionally impacts the Europa League and the third-tier Europa Convention League that begins subsequent season.
Settlement on the 2024-25 proposals are possible earlier than UEFA’s annual congress of members on April 20, to be held in Montreux, Switzerland.
