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With the Champions league already not being an actual champions league anymore this is what Platini has come up with. So much for him actually bringing some common sense to the game..

http://www.sportinglife.com/football/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=soccer/07/08/29/SOCCER_Champions_League_Nightlead.html

When Platini was being touted as the new president of UEFA alot of people said it would be good to have a "football person" in charge. Since he has been in charge he has come up with some rather bizarre ideas.

yeah a shame really. I had high hopes for him but he turns out to be as crazy as Cruijff

It's all about milking it for the money though.  Actually, I sort of agree with the principle there, at least the domestic cup winners are sort of champions.  It's ridiculous that 3rd and 4th in the league still get a spot in the Champions League, although I am obviously grateful.   I don't see how you can be crowned true Champions of Europe if you can't even win your own league.

Just my thoughts, it's still a great competition to watch.

The idea makes a lot of sense in principle.

Teams (esp the 'big 4' and those trying to avoid relegation) will no longer be able to field weakened sides in the cup and cup finals will have a lot more meaning. Also having a mediocre league season (like Arsenal the last 2 years and Liverpool for seasons before that) will mean no CL football the following year.

In practise it just wont be allowed by the G14 clubs. Plus it will mean even more of a luck element in the CL which may or may not be a good thing.

I like the idea but I doubt it'll happen.

It should happen, I for one have been happy with the system for obvious reasons, but how can clubs be champions if they have never won it.

The reason the top 4 are the top 4 is because of the last few years of milking the C/L, how can other clubs compete.

FA cup should have a place in C/L if the english system is to keep 4 places.

will never work simply because you will have teams playing in Champions league who do not warrant a place even more than the team who finishes 4th in the league at the moment.

Chances are the cup will be won by a team who has already qualified for the Champions League thru the league (1995 was the last time the FA Cup was won by a team other than Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd or Liverpool). So then what, give the Champions league place to the runner up? Thats even dafter than giving it to whoever finishes 4th in the league as you will end up with a team like Millwall or even more strangely West Ham competing in the Champions league.

Then there is the headache of what happens when the final is contested by two teams already in the Champions league like last year when the final was between Man Utd and Chelsea, do you go back to whoever was in the semi final and give it them? How do you reward the place, get the losing semi finalists to play off?

As I understand it the runner-up will not get a chance to qualify - that chance will revert to league position.

The change that should be made is to stop non-champions automatically qualifying for the group stage & allow more champions straight in.

Yup - the 4th spot will revert back to the next placed league team but they will have to enter via the "cup route" in a knockout stage Vs other countries' cup winners.

monkey boffins have set to work to come up with a better idea is to have every single top flight european club to be placed in a 128 group draw for just one European trophy

512 teams in 128 groups of 4 to be seeded based on country performance, each team to play each other home and away.

top team go thru to next stage, nothing for finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th - therefore 128 teams progress to next stage.

redraw for remaining 128 teams into 16 groups of 8, no seeding and no country segregation, each team to play each other home and away. Top 2 teams to qualify for knockout stages.

32 teams then 2 legged knock-out all the way to the one game grand final.

Then you truly can say that you are the best club in Europe.

Who cares if you've got to play 150 games a season, you're getting paid £80000 a week to kick a ball around a pitch for 90 mins you wuss!!

move over platini :)

love it expect there would be too many meaningless games in the first 2 rounds

for the big teams yes but for the 3 other teams in each group it would be like a cup final to them. The big teams cant relax too much and field understrength teams in either group stages as only one goes thru from first group phase and 2 teams from 2nd group phase.

Everybody participates in European competition therefore the smaller clubs from tiny countries are guarenteed revenue from 6 games and the bigger clubs get the majority of the tv money when the 2nd group stages kick in when there are bound to be several big clubs in one group (just completely random draw, no seeding no country segregation) fighting for just 2 spots........

I'd love a format like this, only at 150 games a season the standard of football would be sh*t. 80k per week or not.

However if this could be applied to a smaller competition it'd be great.

There wont be major TV money for a competition that isn't for the elite and doesn't have a really good standard of football.

As the elite clubs will still be participating then the major tv companies will still pay them but it will only be to show their games - therefore the big clubs will still get more of the lions share of the money each tournament than the smaller clubs with less of an attraction.

They would still get some money as chances are someone like Eurosport or Satanta2 would want to cover the smaller games.

and having calculated total number of games played in this competition the two finalists would play just 29 games in this format - added to the 38 games in their own domestic league with maybe between 5 and 10 games for domestic cups means that if a team makes it to the final of their own domestic cup and the Super European cup they will still play less than 80 games a season.

(i believe that teams who make it to the final of the UEFA cup play on average about 70 games a season)

I just wish only the league winners went into this :( good old days where coming 4th was not rewarded.

I'm not so sure much of Europe would tune into Shakthar Donetsk Vs Helsingborg or TNS vs Brondby meaning the offers for the smaller games from TV channels wouldn't amount to much.

Once again, I think the G14 clubs would veto any deal that takes money away from them. EVERYTHING (from the format to the teams included) in the CL is based around money being made out of the big glamourous matches. It sucks yes, but it works as everyone who likes football tunes in all across Europe.

I dont think it should be called the 'Champions League' but if you take away the teams involved most years it just wont be as appealing.

How many times though do you hear of a big game build up only for the match itself to be a complete anti-climax, then on the very next night you end up watching a game between two teams you've hardly every heard of and it turn out to be one of the most entertaining games you've seen in ages.

Personally if its football i usually end up watching it regardless of the teams/countries participating and nowadays virtually every league in europe is getting some form of tv coverage - eurosport will show anything!! ;)

Obviously not every game is going to get covered but most teams will find someone wanting to show the games even if its their own terrestrial tv coverage.......

I'm supposed to be putting together the unaudited company accounts for 2006 - i can't be expected to come up with the answers to all of Platini's problems in one afternoon!! :D

The worst thing about the C/L is the fact that you can basically work out the route to the final once the draw will be made this afternoon, and 9 times out of 10, the same teams will be playing each other like last season and the season before.. Chelsea v Barca, Liv v Chelsea, and so on..

C/L should be about Champions, UEFA cup or whatever they want to call it should be for other clubs.. The problem with this format now is that Champions of Spain, Italy or UK will win it every year because the top 3 or 4 in them leagues are so far ahead of the other clubs.

I dont know what the answer should be I cant see it changing much, maybe it should go back to being a knock out comp from the start 2 legged..  :dontask:

Very true, but how many fans continent wide think that way? Everyone from everywhere will watch Man Utd, more becuase of marketing than anything else. Most big clubs have that pull. It is a shame I admit, my favourite clubs in the last 3 years in Europe have been Seville, AZ Alkmaar and Weder Bremen.