Over the past few weeks, much discussion has been made about retooling the UEFA Champions League. From talks about a “Super League” or creating two round robin groups in the round of 16 whereas the top teams in each group meet in the Final. The idea is to make European competition more appealing to a worldwide audience and to maximize revenue to the biggest, most popular teams in Europe.
Essentially, this would be done to make it tougher for Champions League teams like Gent, Malmo or FC Astana to be in the Champions League. Pretty much make it tough for any team from outside of the biggest five leagues to be competitive.
In reality, there isn’t anything wrong with the Champions League. It’s the most popular club soccer tournament in the world and I would say it is only behind the World Cup and Euros as the biggest, most popular soccer tournaments in the world. Yes, Barcelona vs. BATE Borisov isn’t the most attractive matchup in the world but millions upon millions of people around the world will still watch.
No, this is all about money and how the richest clubs in Europe need more of it. And popular teams like Manchester United, Liverpool, AC Milan and others who haven’t been able to consistently get into the Champions League to get in and go far in the tournament, are possibly looking for an easier way to get into European competition and have access to that money. This isn’t to say any of these teams are interested or not but these teams would benefit the most at the moment with a revamped structure.
Well, how about this for a novel concept. The Champions League format doesn’t need to get better, maybe those teams need to get better. Maybe they need to learn why the Leicester City’s and Fiorentina’s are better than them while spending millions and millions less for their players and not expect to be given a free pass to the Champions League because they have worldwide mass appeal.
Another reason why teams favor a revamped Champions League structure is for non-EPL teams to make up the revenue EPL teams are receiving from their expensive TV deal. That would be a plausible explanation if EPL teams were excluded in this new structure. Because while non-EPL teams would receive more revenue, EPL teams in the competition would have that same revenue plus the EPL TV revenue and have even more. So the super rich would get even richer and you’re back to square one.
Look, change the Champions League structure if you want but at least do everyone a favor and give the real reason why changes would be made. This doesn’t have to do with competition, nor ratings, nor to make things more exciting. This is all about maximizing revenue and to provide a much better chance for the most popular teams to go as far in the tournament as possible because they cannot guarantee they can do it themselves. Because it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.
