UEFA: a new Champions League to stop the Super League

UEFA wants to avoid the creation of the European Super League and thus, works on new formats for the Champions League that convince the big clubs to put the project of the great regular continental competition back in the drawer of the non-urgent.

As detailed by Telegraph, lhe UEFA wants to consider expanding the tournament from 32 to 36 teams and completely change the group stage from having three rivals and playing six games to playing up to ten games before qualifying for the playoffs. A format nicknamed the 'Swiss system' because of how the competition is developed in the Swiss country.

Of these 32 or 36 clubs, sixteen would survive in the fight for the tournament, which would be matched by their qualification in the regular phase and not by draw. This would be like the NBA playoffs, but without a conference division. That is, the first would play against the sixteenth, the second against the fifteenth and so on, successively. The teams that remained between the 17th and 24th place would go on to play the qualifying rounds of the Europa League, as now happens with the third group, and the rest would be eliminated from any European competition.

This format, they say, would allow more matches to be seen between elite rivals among the European elite, would eliminate uninteresting matches in the current previous league and would also generate more income to distribute among participating clubs.

This plan, adds the British newspaper, will be presented to the ECA, the Association of European Clubs where several of the great clubs of the continent meet (Real Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Juventus, the great English, PSG, Bayern …), to try to prevent them from starting your big competition project.

Manchester United and Liverpool are among the clubs that have supported the Super League project the most, as have Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético de Madrid. In his last public appearance as president of Barça, Josep María Bartomeu publicly confirmed the approval of the requirements to be part of this great project. It has yet to be ratified by the Assembly. “The European Club Super League will guarantee sustainability to the club and that it continues to belong to the members,” he said.