Third-tier Euro Competition - UEFA "pondering" plans

Lovely Bloke

So it seems as if UEFA are "pondering" the introduction of a third-tier European competition, below the Europa League, for teams who fall out of both the CL and EL at the qualification, and countries that never send teams to the group stages of either.

Is it a good idea - can Irish teams, for example, afford the travel?

Does it do any good having SPA playing Hafnarfjörður in the depths of an Icelandic winter? Linfield traveling to Torshavn in darkest November?

Will teams take it less seriously than they take the EL, is that even possible?

brevity

They would want to fix EL before they start making any more European competitions.

It doesn't make any sense to introduce this competition.

TheDoctor

Need to tighten up the EL first.

Too many teams in it, cut down the number of qualifying rounds and teams that make the group stage.

Need to remove Champions League teams who drop down after failing in the competition. Completely undermines the tournament, especially teams that arrive in the Last 32.

RayCon

Waste of time ... the EL struggles with "prestige" and had to guarantee a CL place to the winners to try and halt it's perceived irrelevancy (especially amongst British based clubs).

Captain Havoc

I personally like the idea and I think those countries who enter would also take it seriously unlike the big clubs take the UEFA cup. If the prize money is relatively decent I don't see that being an issue. I don't think it would be a money spinner though, I really don't see Tallaght filling out unless they got to a semi final, equally I don't see any broadcaster wanting to show any matches. Equally I think the final should be played somewhere in the middle, agreed on by both clubs.

KaiserGunner

TheDoctor wrote: »

Need to tighten up the EL first.

Too many teams in it, cut down the number of qualifying rounds and teams that make the group stage.

Need to remove Champions League teams who drop down after failing in the competition. Completely undermines the tournament, especially teams that arrive in the Last 32.

Yeah the Champions league teams dropping down to it is a joke and undermines all the teams that were originally in it from the start. It basically rewards teams that failed in the Champions league. Makes it worse if they then go on to win the competition, which I'm sure has happened in the past.

GLaDOS

While I understand the negativity, be a good chance for Irish sides to get a bit of a run in Europe and some valuable experience. That in turn could help in future Europa League qualifying.

Harry Palmr

Well if it keep Liverpool in Europe I'm all for it! I'd prefer to see the CWC brought back myself, after all many a "small team" in that created moments of magic down the years. Mechelen beat Ajax to win it in 1987/88 and Magdeburg 2-0 AC Milan in 1973/74 for example.

Pighead

As with everything it all depends on the money involved. There has to be some incentive to 'playing Hafnarfjörður in the depths of an Icelandic winter' as was mentioned earlier. Also given the standard will be lower it's not unreasonable to assume clubs will still be in Europe after our summer season has finished. Depending on schedules it's likely players will have to extend their seasons and keep in training which means they will have to be paid. Will be interesting to see the breakdown of prize money.

Harry Palmr

It'll be very small - clubs winning the EL after 18 games bag about 15 million euro and you have some of the biggest sides in the world in that, so I'd say it'll be 'chump change'

5starpool

Yep, bring back the Cup Winners Cup.

Who can ever forget Nayim lobbing Seaman from 40 yards!

homerjay2005

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Is it a good idea - can Irish teams, for example, afford the travel?

arent some LOI teams budgets based on European qualification though i.e. - they are well looked after and gate receipts , TV money and the Uefa grants/prize money outweights the cost of Travel?

it definitely would financially benefit the LOI teams anyway, assuming the fans turn up and watch the games.

Paz-CCFC

Is this just something to keep the small clubs/leagues happy, while they continue to close off the EL and CL for the top teams/leagues? When the EL started, the first round or two was generally reserved for the smaller nations of relatively equal standing, so everyone had a good chance of progressing. Teams from countries like Wales had a decent chance of getting seeded and you had all nations getting at least one automatic second round place. Then they started giving most of the English, German, Spanish, Italian etc. sides byes into the group stages, closing off qualification places and pushing big teams back a round or two. Now, you have big clubs like Hadjuk Split and Red Star and group stage semi-regulars like Apollon and Brondby at the very beginning, making it a total mismatch.

I'd be open to the general idea, allowing smaller clubs to grow with more regular European experience. But not if it were to turn into a glorified Intertoto Cup and allow UEFA to give further places to the bigger leagues for the CL/EL, whilst letting the small clubs compete for peanuts.

Omackeral

TheDoctor wrote: »

Need to tighten up the EL first.

Too many teams in it, cut down the number of qualifying rounds and teams that make the group stage.

Was looking at the groups this morning. Apart from not knowing a couple of teams, the fact that there is a Group L really says it all. It's nearly the full alphabet.

ConstantJoe

KaiserGunner wrote: »

Yeah the Champions league teams dropping down to it is a joke and undermines all the teams that were originally in it from the start. It basically rewards teams that failed in the Champions league. Makes it worse if they then go on to win the competition, which I'm sure has happened in the past.

Chelsea won it that way. If my memory serves me correctly Atletico Madrid won it that way too, the year they beat Fulham in the final.

Mr.H

I would revamp the lot of the European cups

Champions League
Only champions from every league in Europe. All 54 (I think) nations.

The bottom 44 nations' winners play in a 2 leg playoff game (2 games each) and winners go into the group stage. These games can take place in August.

Top 10 nations in Europe have their winner go through to 1 of 8 groups in the group stage (8 groups of 4 teams = 6 games each) these games should all be played between September and October with no dragging it out over 3 months.

The winners and runners up go through to the last 16 with no country or seeding protection.

Winners of this go to Quarters, Semis and the Final making the most games any team plays is 15 games in Europe.

The Qualifiers played in August
Group stage in September/October
Round of 32 and Quarters in February
With the Semis and final in May

This would be a true Champions League

Cup winners Cup
This could have the cup winners only from all 54 nations plus the top 10 nations runners up of their league (to bring it to 64 teams). This would be a pure knockout competition and teams that win their domestic leagues would be eligible for this also.

64 Teams start (2 games) August
Round of 32 (2 games) August
Last 16 (2 games) December
8 Quarter (1 game neutral venue) December
4 Semi (1 game neutral venue) December
2 Final (1 game neutral venue) December

This competition would start in August with 64 teams. By the end of August there will be 16 teams left. These teams would play off at the start of December and in the final week of December (Christmas and New years week) a host city would see the final 8 teams would play in a quarter final on a sat/sun, the semis both on wed and the final on saturday.

The Europa Cup
The same format as Champions league is now.

The difference would be that no champions are involved in this cup. So the top 5 teams in England (excluding the champion,s making it top 4) would qualify. If they wanted they could even add extra teams and give 8 teams in England a chance at it.

This time I would have qualifiers (just one round) for the group stage

a group stage of 16 groups of 7 (112 teams) (all playing each other just once)

After that have a round of 32, quarters, semis, final

The Qualifiers played in August
Group stage in October/November (this is when the Champions League would end)
Round of 32 and Quarters in January
With the Semis and final in May


Why change?
If the tournaments went something like that they would each add a uniqueness for the fan and would be more marketable for sponsors.

Champions league takes away from the Europa at the moment, but if they were played at different times of the year they wouldnt impact each other.

The finals and Semi's could be played close to each other as the Semi's of the Europa could be at 6pm on tues and Wed with the Semi of the Champions League on at 8pm Tues and Wed. This way it would be marketable for TV companies to have both and not think that the Europa is not worth sponsoring.

The Finals could also be played on the same day again leading into each other

The Cup winners cup would bring back something I really enjoyed but if it was done in this format it would offer a "festive" package for TV companies to market while also getting games (and the tournament) just done and out of the way). This would also be a period where most leagues have a winter break so they would be free. It would take their "break" away from them but Im sure they wouldnt mind since it is just a couple of games and thats only if they win.


Jaysus!!! did I write all that?????????????????? Anyway if anyone needs me Im going down to city hall to sort out the traffic problem with the city

Francie Barrett

This is a fantastic idea. Realistically, 3/4 of countries basically have no chance at the Europa League (never mind the Champions League).

Fr Tod Umptious

It may be the first septs in creating a pan European league of various different levels, with the bottom levels being geographical structured.

kksaints

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

It may be the first septs in creating a pan European league of various different levels, with the bottom levels being geographical structured.

Thats key for me. As a LOI fan I would be interested in a third-tier Euro competition as long as the prize money is decent (enough to cover costs and a small profit) and a key element in keeping costs down is regionalisation so that clubs dont have to bring their teams to far-flung places like Karagandy or Tbilisi. The Europa League Qualifiers used to have an element of this but it didn't seem like it the last two seasons.

Maybe a competition structure with Europe divided into 6 regions like North Europe (Scandianavia and the Baltics), Western Europe, Central Europe (East of Germany but West Of Ukraine and Belarus), Mediterranean, British Isles and Eastern Europe (From Ukraine and Belarus eastwards) with the winners of each region and the two best runner-ups playing off to decide the overall winner.

Obviously this would need a lot of work to get regions a more equal number of countries in each region and there could be issues with fairness that might need to be sorted but I would like to see a strong element of regionalisation if a new competition is to be set up.