The Executive Committee of the European Football Association "UEFA" (UEFA) will meet tomorrow, Tuesday, a day before the annual conference of the association, in light of expectations to finalize new amendments to the competition system in the European Champions League, which is expected to enter into force from 2024.
After the storm caused by a number of clubs announcing the launch of the European Super League competition in search of greater revenues from European matches, the European Football Association developed a plan to improve the European Champions League, to pull the rug out from “rebellious clubs” and lure everyone with additional income in the latest version of the largest club-level competitions. .
According to the French press agency, the new version of the Champions League will include two major amendments, namely, the transition from the participation of 32 clubs in the group stage in the current version to 36 clubs, starting from the 2025/2024 season.
The group stage will also be replaced by a mini-tournament that guarantees each team to play 10 matches before moving on to the playoffs.
This amendment will allow to increase the number of matches in the tournament from 125 to 225 matches, a difference of 100 matches, which will allow to increase revenue from television rights and ticket sales.
These amendments are not unanimously agreed by the participants in European football, due to the overcrowded schedule of matches and the disparity in the economic level between clubs.
The agency stated that the European Leagues Association - which includes 30 professional leagues on the continent - demands that the group stage matches not be increased to more than 8 matches, while the groups of fans gathered within the Football Supporters Network Europe stick to only 6 matches in this role.
Fans say the increase in continental matches will "widen the gap between domestic leagues and teams in the same league, reinforce the dominance of the richer clubs, increase the environmental impact of football and lead to more predictable matches than ever before."
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On the other hand, opponents of the new amendments criticize the allocation of two of the four additional cards based on the UEFA coefficient, that is, previous European results, which is an opportunity for the major clubs to compensate for their failure to occupy the qualifying positions for the tournament.
They believe that this amendment will harm the principle of equality between clubs demanding qualification through local leagues, and contradicts the justifications for rejecting the European Super League, which used to guarantee fixed places for major clubs regardless of their results.
The reform of the Champions League could also include the idea put forward by UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin last year, which includes organizing the semi-finals and final in the same city instead of the two-legged semi-final matches and a match in a stadium announced before the start of the tournament annually.
It is noteworthy that the European Football Association granted, at the beginning of the current world, television rights for European club competitions for 5 billion euros annually for the period between 2024 and 2027, an increase of 50% compared to television rights for the 2018/2019 season.