First things first, this post is not about Football Kits….
With news coming out this week about UEFA considering a third European Competition being introduced in 2021 to be played alongside the Champions League and Europa League…. the return of the Cup Winners Cup, who knows??
Read more about this announcement here – BBC Sport report
A friend then reminded me of a tweet a sent out in October 2017 about an idea that I had about revamping the Champions League.
When I was a child, I used to invent these kind of Super Leagues, creating squads from the best of the Football League, Scottish Premier and European Giants, well the one’s I knew about thanks to Match and Shoot Magazines in years of 1987 to 1990.
This memory got me thinking about how I could use that format and revamp the Champions League’s current format….. yep, I was that bored at some point that I spent time devising and working a competition, just to see if I could make it work.
So, for your pleasure, I give you my thoughts on a piece of paper in a little more detail.
PRE-QUALIFYING ROUNDS – JULY to AUGUST
This part of the competition would not change, there would continue to be four pre-qualifying rounds, with the same knock out format. With clubs joining the competition at each round depending on the Country’s Coefficient.
ROUND 1, ELIMINATION ROUND – SEPTEMBER
After Pre-qualifying we are now left with 32 teams (as we are now) but this is the first change in the Competition. Currently these teams are split into 4 pots and then drawn into 8 groups of 4 teams, in this vision Pots 1 and 2 are combined, so league winners of the major leagues, holders and the highest ranked teams will be make the 16 teams in “Pot 1”, the remaining 16 teams would then make up “Pot 2”.
For an example, lets take the 4 pots from this year’s Competition and show you what this would look like with Pot 1 and Pot 2 making the new “POT 1” and Pots 3 and 4 making the new “POT 2”:
These teams would then be drawn into 16 ties (POT 2 v POT 1), this would be a two legged tie and would also be drawn so that teams from the same country could not be drawn against each other.
Using this year’s competition again as an example, the draw would look like this (and yes I did recreate the draw myself with 16 bits of paper, I was going to Kinder Eggs in the place of balls but thought would be a step too far):
In the draw above, the teams from POT B were drawn first to complete that half of the draw and then the teams in POT A.
In the 2nd tie Monaco were drawn from POT B, then PSG drawn from POT A, as they are both from France they cannot play each other in this round, so PSG moved down to the next available tie (Tie 3), where they play Liverpool.
Games would be played in September, in the week after the International Break and the following week.
ROUND 2, THE LEAGUES – OCTOBER TO APRIL
This is where my competition has its biggest change, the 16 remaining teams will then be drawn into 2 leagues (LEAGUE A and LEAGUE B), there will be no more than 2 clubs from the same country in each league.
Again basing this on the above draw from the qualified teams from the 2018/19 competition and not being particularly scientific in terms of the results, apologies to any supporters of clubs that I have just eliminated from the competition, we have the following leagues drawn out of the hat.
The Leagues are drawn alternatively, so first club drawn goes into League 1, the second in League 2, the third into League 1 and so on…. if a club is drawn into a League where there are already two clubs from their country they move to the next league.
So there we have it, our 2 Leagues….. now, that gives us 14 fixtures to play between October and March (each team playing each other Home and Away).
Looking at the current European Calendar, there are five rounds of fixtures in Between October and early December. Last 16 games are played over four match days in February and March, then the first leg of Quarter Final is played in first week of April. So currently there is ten potential match days already in the calendar, therefore another four weeks are needed…. again looking at this seasons competition the following weeks could be used:
QUARTER FINAL – APRIL
We now are in early April and the leagues have finished and we see the return of the knock out rounds.
The Quarter Finals are sorted by the top four teams in each league moving forward, with 1st Place in “League 1” playing 4th Place in “League 2” and so on, initially in my little sketch I had this as a two legged tie but on reflection, a one off tie with the teams finishing in first and second place playing at home may work better and be a reward for those teams finishing in the top 2 of their respective leagues:
There is no restriction on clubs from the same country playing each other, as we have now at the Quarter Final stage of Champions League.
SEMI FINAL – MAY
Semi Final time and this time two legged games are back, the ties are sorted by the Quarter Final Fixtures, therefore potential keeping the teams finishing top of their groups apart at this stage.
Games will be played over two weeks in May and leave us with our two finalists.
FINAL – JUNE
The final, played as has been seen over the the recent years on the first Saturday of June at a Neutral Venue in a one off fixture.
There are of course plenty of issues and questions that this would raise, its not the perfect idea, if it was then I’d have a job at UEFA somewhere and not rambling on like this, but this gives what many of the clubs and fans are looking for with more fixtures where the “Big” European clubs are playing against each other and I would imagine the Television rights that something like this would generate would be of the likes we have not seen yet in Football.
For balance, some of the issues needing addressing:
- Additional Game Weeks needed
- What would happen to clubs knocked at Round 1
- Impact on Domestic Leagues
- International Breaks are taken into account but would they be impacted
- Player burn out
- It would take a minimum of 20 games to reach the final, from 13 games now
- And so many more
Well that’s my idea, yes expanded from initial thoughts on a piece of paper and if you have got this far I thank you for taking the time to read through this, I have spent far too much thinking about this competition but I’ll be honest, I have quite enjoyed it!!
Let me know your thoughts and if you have any ideas for your own competition.
Football Kit Geek - @Kit_Geek 