NOS Football•today, 08:27
More excitement, more top matches, more money. And every match, every point and every goal counts towards the competition, UEFA promises. With a flashy video and an attractive presentation, the European Football Association is making a promotional tour to warm up clubs, media and fans about the new format of the European tournaments. After Munich, Milan and Paris, among others, it was Amsterdam’s turn on Thursday.
UEFA has reserved a meeting room in a hotel at Schiphol where representatives of the Dutch media have been invited for the presentation. UEFA top officials Giorgio Marchetti, Tobias Hedtstück and Stéphane Anselmo will provide explanations about the new formats. Because after the summer, the European tournaments will look radically different in the first phase.
What was that again? The new format means saying goodbye to the group stage as we know it now. Instead, there will be one ranking with all 36 participating clubs. This applies to the Champions League, the Europa League and the Conference League.
In the Champions League and the Europa League, all clubs play eight matches, four away and four at home. All against different opponents. To create a level playing field, the clubs are divided into four pots during the draw, with the strongest clubs based on the UEFA ranking in pot 1, the lowest-ranked clubs in pot 4.
Each club faces two teams from each pot, one away and one at home. A single ranking is formed with the results of all clubs and the balance is drawn up after eight matches. The best 8 clubs in the rankings advance directly to the knockout phase.
The clubs from 9th to 24th place play an intermediate round and the clubs that finish 25th or lower are eliminated from Europe. So there is no more flow back to the Europa League or Conference League.
“There are actually four main reasons for this changed design,” says Marchetti. “First of all, we want better competition over the entire first phase. It now regularly happened that teams were already qualified or eliminated after four matches. This resulted in pointless and useless matches. This model should make it less predictable.”
“Secondly, we want more diversity in terms of matches. Not three opponents that you play against twice, but eight different opponents for each club. Moreover, we are now guaranteed top matches from the first match day. Because teams from pot 1 play directly against each other.”
“We also want to give more clubs the opportunity to participate. We are going from 32 to 36 teams per tournament. This means that a total of 108 clubs can play in the various main tournaments. Finally, it is our duty to ensure that football is future-proof. That we improve and that we can also involve new fans.”
Spectacular final evening
The latter in particular is an important point for UEFA. Because the football association notices that the attention of the new generation (generation Z, raised in the world of the internet, mobile phones and social media) for football is decreasing. To regain that interest, there will be more top matches, but the schedule should also help with this.
Anselmo: “We will start in September with an exclusive Champions League week. This means matches on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings only from the Champions League. There will also be a similar week for the Europa League. And in the decisive eighth match round, which takes place at the end of January, all matches will be played simultaneously.”
“Imagine: eighteen Champions League matches at the same time. Where every score and every goal has consequences for the final score. People can watch on multiple screens at home at the same time, there will be bridging programs… And every team has something to fight for, because the higher you finish in the rankings, the more advantageous it is for the knockout phase,” he said enthusiastically.
Because in the new format, UEFA uses a seeding system for the KO phase, comparable to tennis. The two teams that finished highest on the rankings are separated in the KO phase, first play against the (on paper) least strong teams and can only meet again in the final.
Concerns about playing calendar
All in all, UEFA hopes to give European club football a positive boost with the new format. Whether it actually turns out this way remains to be seen. Because the European Football Association shares the concerns of clubs and players about the full playing calendar. And there is very little room left in the schedule to make up canceled games.
Nevertheless, UEFA believes that this will satisfy the largest and most powerful clubs to such an extent that plans for the arrival of a so-called Super League have been shelved for the time being. Especially because the total prize money of all European tournaments is also increasing from 3.7 to 4.4 billion. It is enough? Probably not. But perhaps the hunger for more has been satisfied at least for a while.
