Uefa moves Champions League final

The Champions League final will move from its midweek slot to Saturday from 2010, Uefa has announced.
The first Saturday evening final will be at Rome's Stadio Olimpico.

Qualification will also change, with 22 teams qualifying based on their league standing, and a two-part tournament for the remaining 10 places.

Five of them will be disputed by 15 teams from leading nations, and teams from Uefa's 40 other member nations will compete for the last five places.

Format changes also mean that three Premier League teams will qualify automatically for the group stage, as will the champions of Scotland.

But the fourth-placed Premier League side will face a stiffer test in the qualifying round, as they are more likely to face stronger opponents than under the current format.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/7120518.stm
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Thoughts? I'm not too keen on a Saturday final, but I can understand the reasoning behind it.

can see the logic all round tbh, gives the smaller nations chances to get teams into the competition proper, but ensures the BIG countries have guaranteed representation. the biggest prob i can see is for spain/italy is that their start of season is often a bit later than the rest so their teams may not be so physically ready as the others if the qualifiers are at the same time as currently.

yeah i understand the logic in this

22 teams for 15 nations.

Somebodies been screwed royally here and they may well be French and German.

* associations ranked 1 to 3 have four positions,
* associations ranked 4 to 6 have three positions,
* associations ranked 7 to 15 have two positions,
* associations ranked 16 or lower have one position.

The Champions are in the group stage automatically. Making 21 places available. The 15 Champions qualify automatically. Making 6 places available. The top 3 nations get 2 places for the runners up automatically, making no places available for other nations runners up automatically.

* 1 current Champions League holder
* 16 winners from the Third Qualifying Round
* 9 champions from associations 1-9
* 6 runners-up from associations 1-6

Platini's just taken a place of the Germans, French and Portugese and given them to the big 3. No wonder he's been on a PR offensive showing his dislike for the EPL before everybody in France realises what has happened.

The compromise simply isn't worth it if that's the case and so Platini's worse than Johansson. I hope the French press go mad over this.

But how do we know what the association rankings will be when the new format comes into force for the 2009/10 season?

Disagree with the final times. If you want to bring kids to stadiums make the tickets cheaper.

briz wrote:But how do we know what the association rankings will be when the new format comes into force for the 2009/10 season?

They'll remain static for the nations that matter.

Does anyone know if seedings will be in operation during the UEFA qualifying rounds in the new format,or will it be a 'free' draw split into the geographical regions they have now?

If Rome is holding in 2010, who has it in 2009?

Will this new CL Final date clash with the English FA Cup Final? Fans outside of England probably don't give a f@ck if it does, but how about the English fans who cherish this "in case $h!t happens" little cup?

Here is the allocation according to the new modus:
http://www.uefa.com/newsfiles/630630.pdf
Notice that there is a d ifference between the 4th, 5th ranked countries and the 6th ranked country. While both have 2+1 team in the CL, the N3 of the 6th ranked country must go through 2 qualification rounds, whereas the N3 of the 4th and 5th ranked country have only one qualification round.

Nikolaus der gute Mann wrote:Here is the allocation according to the new modus:
http://www.uefa.com/newsfiles/630630.pdf
Notice that there is a d ifference between the 4th, 5th ranked countries and the 6th ranked country. While both have 2+1 team in the CL, the N3 of the 6th ranked country must go through 2 qualification rounds, whereas the N3 of the 4th and 5th ranked country have only one qualification round.

That makes more sense then.

robert wrote:Disagree with the final times. If you want to bring kids to stadiums make the tickets cheaper.

its whats wrong with footy these days sure he means watching on TV, given that it kicks off at quarter to nine CET

CL to a Saturday night?

Saturday night prime time for footie in Portugal?

If Sporting, Porto or Benfica are playing (god forbids they are not playing one another), the CL is going to come a distant second.

What a stupid idea.

lamps i'm sure they'll ask for there to be no clashes with other matches

The-Frankinsense-Tavern wrote:lamps i'm sure they'll ask for there to be no clashes with other matches

May be. Calendar in Portugal is Cr@p as it is (and with only 16 teams).
And people do prefer to watch their clubs play, instead of what may be a mild affair
Let it be on Wednesday. It is a slow day. People are gagging for football
Weekends is the time to watch your club play on the respective league

Nikolaus der gute Mann wrote:Here is the allocation according to the new modus:
http://www.uefa.com/newsfiles/630630.pdf
Notice that there is a d ifference between the 4th, 5th ranked countries and the 6th ranked country. While both have 2+1 team in the CL, the N3 of the 6th ranked country must go through 2 qualification rounds, whereas the N3 of the 4th and 5th ranked country have only one qualification round.

That's fucking wonderfull. So the English, Spanish and Italians all get more secured places in the CL, while the French and Germans stay as they are now with the 3rd place club going through a knock-out round... Portugal on the other hand will have to play one more knock-out round now to get their 3rd place club in. Nice.

Course we've lost 6th place for now anyways, but since I'm hoping we'll be getting it back it's good to know we've been screwed so that one of Europe's richer clubs doesn't have to go through qualifying... that would be too harsh... I mean they'd run the risk of not actually qualifying and losing all that money.

What do the Dutch/Portuguese/Turkish/Greek/Russian etc. clubs really need to play CL for anyway?

lampiao007 wrote:

The-Frankinsense-Tavern wrote:lamps i'm sure they'll ask for there to be no clashes with other matches

May be. Calendar in Portugal is Cr@p as it is (and with only 16 teams).
And people do prefer to watch their clubs play, instead of what may be a mild affair
Let it be on Wednesday. It is a slow day. People are gagging for football
Weekends is the time to watch your club play on the respective league

I think it's part of what makes Europe so special to people; it's a change from the normal rutine. "European nights" are some of the bigget moments a club can have, and that midweak final clash is amazing.

Maybe it'll work, I can see a good side to it as well, but I'm more inclined to be with Lamps on the idea that weekend is for league football.