How would you change the Champions League and Europa League?

If you were made President of UEFA,what changes would you impose on the 2 competitions??

One thing is for certain,the Europa League needs a drastic overhall.

Reduce prize money for the CL.

Increase prize money for the EL.


Equitable redistribution of wealth, gentlemen.

Make the EL knockout

And give the winner a CL spot

Murray wrote:Make the EL knockout

And give the winner a CL spot

And don't let CL failures drop into the EL, it devalues the competition.

anybody can enter, make it a free for all knockout like the FA Cup with preliminaries in July. The only rule for qualification being you must have been a top flight club in a European league for 12 months or more, and you're not involved in the Champions League.

No Champions League rejects

Winner gets Champions League qualification to the group stage

and a brand new Lexus

All the points I wanted to make have already been made here...

1. Reduce the prize money gap between the CL and the EL
2. Stop taking the January rejects from CL
3. Give the finalists CL qualification for next season

If the implement point no 1 properly, then point 3 may not be required.

CL...well only champions! And no more seeded teams. Cause lets be honest, there will hardly be any suprises in the group stage. Only 1 or 2 teams per nation.
EL, make an eastern and a western conference. Just like in American sports, get's tastier draws for fans. Also higher prize money.

And bring back the cup winners cup!

Fey wrote:CL...well only champions! And no more seeded teams. Cause lets be honest, there will hardly be any suprises in the group stage. Only 1 or 2 teams per nation.
EL, make an eastern and a western conference. Just like in American sports, get's tastier draws for fans. Also higher prize money.

And bring back the cup winners cup!

that's a bit too nostalgic for my liking.
Champions only would be not my kind of thing because better leagues should be rewarded - also should be renamed to European Star Cup or sth. because its not a league of champions only.

More money for Europa league teams and qualification for CL should be a good addition. Of course, only without the dropouts

Winners of the Europa League have to qualify for CL. The absurd amount of games you have to play to win has to be rewarded with something greater than a bit of money.

Fey wrote:CL...well only champions!

Fey wrote:And bring back the cup winners cup!

yeah same feelings here.
If I were God of Uefa for a day I'd totally roll back the clock to that.

Cup Winners' Cup was fascinating (plus Inter never won that, want a chance); Champions only for champions was THE SHIT, don't give a fuck if it ended up less competitive than UEFA's Cup, the elusiveness of the back-to-back winning steps is what made it special (it's the same reason that makes me rate silliy trophies like the supercups and the club's WC, don't care if they're one-shot jokes, you only can win 'em if you're a winner).

The only innovations of the last 20 years that I'd keep are the one-legged UEFA final, and group stages for the CL - 'cause if you can only enter by winning, it's honestly way too heartbreaking to go out in a september fluke.


Anyway, this is just never gonna happen so being realistic I'd just second this

bluenine wrote:All the points I wanted to make have already been made here...

1. Reduce the prize money gap between the CL and the EL
2. Stop taking the January rejects from CL
3. Give the finalists CL qualification for next season

If the implement point no 1 properly, then point 3 may not be required.

and this

Murray wrote:Make the EL knockout

as there are too many shitty teams in EL to make interesting groups.
Plus having the thrill of KO in EL while the CL has the comfy group stages would help further balancing the audience interest in the two competitions.


Last point, in general a thing that would really help improving the quality of all the cups (UEFA and nationals) would be reducing all national leagues to 18 teams max (ideally 16 but that's a pipe dream)

What about scrapping this rule where teams from the same country can't face each other till the QF?? its not like Arsenal represent England with all their foreigners

Jason Jarrett wrote:What about scrapping this rule where teams from the same country can't face each other till the QF?? its not like Arsenal represent England with all their foreigners

I like that rule because i find same country duels boring. I want to see duels from country vs other country. Thats why its an international tournament.

Its ironic,we have 100000000 teams in the Europa League,yet Roma,Everton and Sevilla,couldn't qualify for Europe.

Fey wrote:CL...well only champions! And no more seeded teams. Cause lets be honest, there will hardly be any suprises in the group stage. Only 1 or 2 teams per nation.
EL, make an eastern and a western conference. Just like in American sports, get's tastier draws for fans. Also higher prize money.

And bring back the cup winners cup!

In the CL, there should be 2 kick off times each day

Well my thing with the CL these days is, it lacks the magic compared to the the past.

Not that long ago a game like Milan-Barca or Bayern-Real or Utd-Juve was something special, now it's an annual thing and with a bit of luck they also meet in the group stages. And the gap between the Uber top teams and the subtop is just too big these days.

I would also stop giving EPL clubs preferential treatment like UEFA does now.

Secondly,maybe if we had 2 second tier trophies,by halving the teams,halving the games,clubs might care,bring back the Cup Winners Cup even if renamed as The Challenge Cup(like in Rugby) or something if it doesn't necessarily have Cup winners.

The CL lost is romance after 2006 IMO. You had teams like Leverkusen, Monaco, Porto and a very average Liverpool side making the final from 2002-2005 then it became very tactical with the LFC vs Chelsea years but from 2008 onwards the domination of Madrid and Barca in European football along with the spending power of Chelsea and United have made it a bit predictable. Barca and Madrid are ridiculous; any player that is top quality or has the potential to become top quality gets snapped up by them eventually - particularly if they're Spanish.

Luis wrote:The CL lost is romance after 2006 IMO.

The year after Liverpool won and then started doing shit.

Maybe it is time to start a european superleague.

People complain about watching the same big teams play each other, but I don't see a problem with that. You see it in every league anyway, I mean how many classicos were there last year? At least Chelsea only play barcelona twice every year, and every match has been far more interesting for me than to watch minnows counter-attacking a bigger team, e.g. bate-bayern. That used to happen before, now it happens a lot more often especially in the group stages. While it is "nice" that lesser known teams can participate, I don't really care about them at all, so there is no interest on my part, apart from being able to take the piss out of bayern.

The only other option is for me to stop watching it for a few years. Maybe just watching every year for the last 20 years is what has made it seem stale.

This is a subjective question, try telling this to Barcelona/Man United/Inter/Chelsea fans!

@ 110%, how would a European Superleague work now? In the current economic climiate (cheap travel notwithstanding) how would supporters afford regular travel within Europe week in week out? After the initial curiosity wears off will this be any better attended than the current position which is not every week at least. Also is membership of Superleague for life or do you have relegation and promotion. Wouldn't such a league kill domestic leagues, including the top ones.

Would like to see proper technology used, rather than just rely on eye-sight of officials which can be fallible (Spurs v Lazio) It wasn't hard to get the right decisions using technology, but Platini is pre-Neanderthal on using technology, even goal-line.

I sometimes feel sorry for some fans nowadays. So your team has qualified for Europa League and don't give a shit because they want to play CL footy and sacrifice the burden for a better chance in the league (Especially some teams in France, Italy, england seem to do it this way, playing second strings)
As a fan I would be angry, would rather see my team in the semis or final of Europa league than trying year after year to get a CL place and then probably crashing out and do the same thing over again for a few years trying to qualify.

That said, there need to be more money or prizes for EL. Like a Lexus or a Ring ffs

how long before the Rise And Fall Of The UEFA Cup DVD and book come out??

Luis wrote:The CL lost is romance after 2006 IMO. You had teams like Leverkusen, Monaco, Porto and a very average Liverpool side making the final from 2002-2005 then it became very tactical with the LFC vs Chelsea years but from 2008 onwards the domination of Madrid and Barca in European football along with the spending power of Chelsea and United have made it a bit predictable. Barca and Madrid are ridiculous; any player that is top quality or has the potential to become top quality gets snapped up by them eventually - particularly if they're Spanish.

Agreed,when was the last time it was won with tactics and not foreign wealth,foreign players and foreign managers??

Jason Jarrett wrote:

Luis wrote:The CL lost is romance after 2006 IMO. You had teams like Leverkusen, Monaco, Porto and a very average Liverpool side making the final from 2002-2005 then it became very tactical with the LFC vs Chelsea years but from 2008 onwards the domination of Madrid and Barca in European football along with the spending power of Chelsea and United have made it a bit predictable. Barca and Madrid are ridiculous; any player that is top quality or has the potential to become top quality gets snapped up by them eventually - particularly if they're Spanish.

Agreed,when was the last time it was won with tactics and not foreign wealth,foreign players and foreign managers??

Barcelona 2011?

All of Barcelona's 2011 squad are foreign