Possible new Champions League format

[shizzle787]

Revealed: Italian and Spanish giants push for new Champions League revolution as Premier League popularity continues to alarm clubs

Italian and Spanish clubs trying to aim for six clubs for the largest countries. Personally, the competition is perfect the way it is. Knowing UEFA (and the ECA pressuring them), they'll screw this up and ruin the whole thing. Greed is never a good thing.

 

[meyers7]

Champions League football doesn't seem to have the allure it used to. At least for EPL teams. Chelsea and ManU are getting pretty much any player they want without the promise of CL. While the 4 CL teams (ManCity, Tottenham, Arsenal and Leicester City) don't seem to have any special pull.

 

[UConnTrumbull]

To be honest, the CL has been very boring the last couple of years. It's always a semi-final of Real, Barca, Atletico, Bayern (substitute PSG or Juve once in a while). That being said, I don't see MORE Spanish or Italian sides as a fix. The 6th place team in either of those leagues is going out in the group stage. There's nothing to fix. Premier League needs to field stronger teams. I think Man U is on that path. Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal need to get it together as well.

 

[SAMCRO]

Seeing there is a bigger financial advantage for teams to finish top 4 domestically than there is to win Europe, my guess is owners and managers may put their emphasis on domestic play. The Bayerns, Barca's, Reals, PSG's, Juve's are all but assured finishing top 3-4 year in and year out. Same cannot be said for any of the English clubs. The EPL is in a pickle, sort of. As a league it is more competitive top to bottom. In the Budesliga, French Ligue 1, Series A, and La Liga, there is a such a gap between the top 5-6 clubs and the rest of the league, it affords those teams to rest/sub players in domestic league games for bigger UCL games, it's less of a grind week in and week out. The EPL is a more balanced league (the top teams are behind the top teams in the other leagues - for the most part - but the middle/bottom of the table are more competitive than the middle/bottom of the other leagues. It is more difficult to finish top 4 in the EPL than it is in the other top European leagues. This forces the Chelsea's, Arsenals, City's, Spurs, United, and Liverpool's to play their fully loaded A teams in most league games, for the full 90 (and those players are going all out). They are less fresh and less rested for the full grind of mid-week European football.