Champions League vs European Cup

[passenger]

To be honest I think making it only the league winners in the champions league is never going to happen but it should definately be just 1st and 2nd to go in, you should atleast have be seriously challenging for your domestic league. 3rd to 5th go in the UEFA and bring back the Cup Winners Cup.

so simple just how it use to be

 

[agricola]

i think we have already arrived at this stage, it is more desirable to finish fourth than to win the FA cup, some teams don't want to qualify for the uefa cup because it may jeopardise their league campaign the following season, teams that have qualified field weakened teams

True, I was more thinking of the scenario where a "big club" didnt qualify but is let in anyway at someone elses expense. As for the UEFA, I am not sure anyone has actually deliberately tried to avoid getting into the UEFA Cup, preferring to finish outside of the European places.

edit: though of course the large number of games required for a club who starts in the UEFA to actually win it is a serious concern.

 

[Deareg]

True, I was more thinking of the scenario where a "big club" didnt qualify but is let in anyway at someone elses expense. As for the UEFA, I am not sure anyone has actually deliberately tried to avoid getting into the UEFA Cup, preferring to finish outside of the European places.

edit: though of course the large number of games required for a club who starts in the UEFA to actually win it is a serious concern.

wouldn't say a team has deliberately not qualified, but i think it was coppel last season who said he didn't want to qualify for the uefa cup, and wasn't it one of his players this season who said he didn't care about winning the FA cup? and bolton fielding a weakened team at quite a late stage?

 

[stavros]

Agreed on all points, although for the Champs Lg only the best 8 national leagues should have 2 representatives, 1 each for all the others.

Define "best". If it's retrospective, I don't see how it could work fairly, as the leagues of Bayern Munich, Hamburg and Red Star Belgrade when they won it originally no longer exist due to country changes. Also, Scottish clubs have won it as many times as French, and Marseilles' 1993 win is tarnished by bribery allegations.

As for the worth of the champions of Luxembourg vs the 4th place team of England, etc, I'm not sure that the sub-league of 4, certainly within England, would exist without the warped qualification format. We hear countless times every summer of how a highly valued player is moving to "play 'Champions' League football". Now, if the number of teams in rich countries able to offer this was reduced by returning to champions-only, then all these top players may not concentrate themselves within so few clubs, and hence a more competitive domestic league. I appreciate there are other influences, such as the "sharing" of TV money, but all factors must be considered.

 

[Silva]

Define "best". If it's retrospective, I don't see how it could work fairly, as the leagues of Bayern Munich, Hamburg and Red Star Belgrade when they won it originally no longer exist due to country changes.

UEFA Coefficient Rankings, so the countries with best joint results in the past five years.

 

[stavros]

UEFA Coefficient Rankings, so the countries with best joint results in the past five years.

OK, but there's still the problem that the last five years as it stands is heavily biased to England, Spain and Italy, and to a lesser extent Germany, France and Portugal. For example, Liverpool won it after finishing fourth the previous season, thus increasing England's ranking, but how do we know that the fourth place team in, say, Austria or Belgium wouldn't have won it if they'd been allowed in? I appreciate it's unlikely, but there needs to be equality for fairness.

 

[Silva]

OK, but there's still the problem that the last five years as it stands is heavily biased to England, Spain and Italy, and to a lesser extent Germany, France and Portugal. For example, Liverpool won it after finishing fourth the previous season, thus increasing England's ranking, but how do we know that the fourth place team in, say, Austria or Belgium wouldn't have won it if they'd been allowed in? I appreciate it's unlikely, but there needs to be equality for fairness.

The system evens out fairly with time. Portugal lost a CL place in 2009 to Russia and was also overtaken by Romania, who had better results in the UEFA Cup while Portugal had a lot of teams entering the UEFA cup doing nothing, same with Sporting in the CL, Porto a couple of years ago, etc. As their ranking comes mostly from good participations in the UEFA Cup but with abysmal performances in the CL, and now there will be less "easy" points from UEFA's group stage, the same will happen by 2012. This happened years ago, when Portugal had no direct spots in the CL after being overtaken by Russia, Czech Republic, Turkey and Greece, and after those teams flunked along a few good participations of Portuguese teams (Boavista reaching the second group stage, Porto and Benfica reaching the Quarters in the UEFA cup, the 2003 UEFA with two in the semi-finals and Porto winning it).
However, I agree that the system does not penalize the top 3 as much as it should: any country entering 4 teams in the champions league should have an extra dividing point thrown in - after all, if they're technically capable of having all semi-finalists, should be also expected to win the trophy regardless of the opposition.

Of course the first few years would be dodgy, but once there's less teams in the CL (giving more chances of 3/4 countries represented in the semi-finals and also reducing the disposable income of those teams, balancing the talent pool), the system would eventually even out. Sadly, this is all purely theorical - not a chance UEFA would axe down the Champions League.

 

[stavros]

not a chance UEFA would axe down the Champions League.

Agreed, but I reckon Platini would dearly love to return it to its pre-1993 format. Unfortunately, I don't think even he can do what's necessary.