Michel Platini this week announced FIFA plans to scrap the unsuccessful Europa League competition and evolve the current Champions League programme to accommodate 64 teams at the group stage. The proposed change would take place from 2015.
The Champions League is already a competition which defies its name as most of the competitors are not Champions; Manchester United, Arsenal (England), AC Milan, Napoli (Italy), Barcelona (Spain), and PSG (France) are all not the champions of their respective leagues. So would adding more teams who finished in even lower positions in their respective divisions add any extra quality to the Champions League?
The Champions League as it stands is a hugely successful tournament with the competing teams raking in the benefits of performing so well in the previous season. So what benefits would this new format bring? Firstly and probably most importantly it would give teams like Newcastle and Tottenham a chance to earn some real money during their exploits in Europe. Last season Manchester United earned £28 million for getting knocked out at the group stages of the Champions League, whereas Europa League winners Atletico Madrid only earned £8.5 million.
The extra money incentive could convince teams like Newcastle and Tottenham to play full strength sides in European competitions as they currently field weakened youthful teams as there is more value in finishing higher in the Premier League and possibly even reaching that vital important Champions League place.
Imagine how devalued the competition would become if you only had to finish seventh in the Premier League to earn a place in Europe’s top competition, The Champions League would no longer be a league for Champions but it isn’t even one currently. Having said this if you take out all the teams who are not Champions from this season’s competition the tournament would not be as entertaining. This new format, however may reduce the possible earnings of actual Champions who have a chance to go further in the current competition but with the additions of stronger sides from Europe’s top leagues they may struggle.
But would this not make the overall quality of football played in the Champions League better I hear you cry. Yes it would but you also have to take into consideration the already clustered football calendar and what these extra games would do to it. 64 teams in the group stages would no doubt lead to at least one additional knock out round which means at least an extra two games to be fitted into the football calendar for the teams that get that far.
Currently teams’ gain much of their income from the Champions League thanks to television rights but if you had 64 teams in the group stages all 32 games could not be televised in one week. This would mean organisers would either have to split the games up so 32 teams play one week and then 32 the next which would provide another headache for the managers in an already congested fixture schedule or decide to only televise certain games.
If all games were televised the viewing figures for each particular match would go down and therefore the television channels would lose their income for advertising and then they would not be able to pay as much for the television rights. Therefore the monetary value of competing in the Champions League would no longer be as great and we would be back at square one with teams not fielding full strength sides so that they can concentrate on their respective league competitions.
The Europa League almost certainly does need a revamp of some kind to get teams and fans interested in the competition again but expanding the Champions League to accommodate this does not seem to be the right answer.