UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has opined that the one-game format that has been used this year from the quarter-finals has sparked more exciting football than the traditional round-trip format, and that this could be resumed in the future.
The format was changed to allow the competition to be completed in a short period of time. after the COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed football for months in Europe. Eight clubs came to Lisbon to play that ‘final to eight’ and the final will be played today between Bayern Munich and PSG.
“We were forced to do it, but in the end we found something new. So we will think about it for the future”Ceferin told Reuters in an interview about this format. “There have not been many tactics. To a game, if one team scores the other must score as soon as possible. In the two-party system, there is time to win in the next match, ”said the president.
“The matches are more excitingof course, but we also have to think about the fact that this causes us to have fewer matches, and the televisions could say 'you don't have as many encounters as before, this is different'. Therefore, we have to discuss it when this madness ends ”, continued Ceferin.
On the other hand, the ‘final eight’ took place without spectators in the stadiums. If this format is repeated in future editions, when the stadiums can already be accessed by the public, this would mean that the fans of the eight qualified teams would move to a single city, which would lead to logistical and security problems. The round trip format, however, is contractually fixed until the 2024/25 season, but talks on the structure of the competition for the next phase should start this year.
A congested calendar
The tournament has been played in 11 days and leaving that space in such a congested international calendar is another obstacle that would have to be overcome, but Ceferin is very intrigued with the possibilities this format offers. “It is clear that this format is interesting. Yes, I doubt that as the schedule is, we could do the ‘final to eight’, because that takes a long time. But I think that the single game format and this system (playing it in a single city) are much more exciting than the previous one, ”said the UEFA president.
“If you play in one city, you can have a 'football week' or something like that. But it is too early to think about that ”, continued Ceferin. “We have seen that it has been a great success and that the television audience has been enormous. Perhaps it is because it is August and people are at home, some at least, but it is a very interesting format, “he said.
As with the Champions League, UEFA has also carried out the same format to finish the Europa League, the UEFA Youth League and the UEFA Women's Champions League. “It has not been an easy challenge, believe me. We are the only organization in the world that has organized four international events in four different countries, which has been an extreme challenge for us ”, explained Ceferin.
UEFA has conducted more than 12,000 COVID tests on players and team staff members at these tournaments. For Ceferin, this has been the most difficult. “The biggest challenge has been everything related to health and with this virus that has spread throughout the world. We try to control everyone, to keep them locked up, separated from the rest of the world, but it has been a huge challenge ”, he concluded.