Reworking Champions League Qualifying

[shizzle787]

The CL qualifying includes some teams that shouldn't be in the competition, and a reworking of the qualification process will lead to a better tournament.

First, the runners up of leagues ranked 10-15 do NOT belong in the CL. They are not champions, and they are not from big leagues, and most years they do not qualify for the group stage. I would assign them to the Europa League playoff round (there will be ample room for them when I change the CL qualification).

So in review, the access list:
Leagues 1-3: 4 teams
Leagues 4-6: 3 teams
Leagues 7-9: 2 teams
Leagues 10-54 (excluding Liechtenstein): 1 team

Automatic Group Stage Participants (26):
CL/EL winner
Champions (1-12)
Runners up (1-6)
3rd place (1-4)
4th place (1-3)

Qualifying (46 teams fighting for 6 spots):
Playoff Round (6 losers drop into EL group stage):
Champions (13)
3rd place (5-6)
9 winners from previous round

3rd Qualifying Round (9 losers drop into EL playoff round):
Champions (14-16)
Runners up (7-9)
12 winners from previous round

2nd Qualifying Round (losers are out of Europe):
Champions (17-27)
13 winners from previous round

1st Qualifying Round (losers are out of Europe):
Champions (28-54, excluding Liechtenstein)

The Europa League qualification will remain roughly the same.

 

[shizzle787]

The Europa League would keep the same format, but the access list would be changed slightly due to the runners up from leagues 10-15 in the playoff round:
Leagues 1-9: 3 teams
Leagues 10-15: 4 teams
Leagues 16-37: 3 teams
League 38 (Liechtenstein): 1 team
Leagues 39-51: 3 teams
Leagues 52-53: 2 teams
League 54: 1 team

Automatic Group Stage Participants (28):
Cup winners (1-12)
3rd (7)
4th (4-6)
5th (1-3)
6th (1-3)
6 CL Playoff Round Losers
20 winners from previous round

Qualifying (149 teams for 20 spots):
Playoff Round:
9 CL 3rd Qualifying Round Losers
Runners up (10-15)
25 winners from previous round

3rd Qualifying Round:
Cup winners (13-17)
3rd (8-15)
4th (7-9)
5th (4-6)
31 winners from previous round

2nd Qualifying Round
Cup winners (18-19)
2nd (16-17)
4th (10-12)
55 winners from previous round

1st Qualifying Round
Cup winners (20-54)
2nd (18-53)
3rd (16-51)
4th (13-15)

The advantage to these formats is that in both the CL and the EL, NO teams from the top 3 leagues have to go through qualifying (and no teams from the 4th best league have to go through CL qualifying).

 

[SAMCRO]

I would like to see UEFA keep the automatic qualifying (no play in game) as it is, still using coefficients in assigning how many tea,s each country gets, BUT figure a way to put all the teams trying to play-in to Europa and UCL into one giant pool, and have them play there way in to the remaining UCL slots, similar to how it is already done, but with more teams. Have the losers, after a certain round, be what makes up the Europa's 48 teams in the group stage. This way a 5th place English, Italian, or German, etc... Club from the top 4-5 countries (Spain, Germany, England, Itally, and France) would have an opportunity to play their way in against some of the Turkish, Greek, Dutch, Scottish, Belgian, Ukranian, Russian, etc... clubs that qualify. Not sure how viable it is, but would make for more competitive games much earlier on in the process. The smaller countries would not go for it as it would hinder them from getting CL exposure, but they'd still have their chance to play their way in. And $$ could appease them, as long as their leagues get the same or more $$ as before. Won't happen, but agree they need to review it.