European Expansion

I currently spend my time between Cleveland, Ohio, and my home in Florida. At present I have gone back to Florida to spend some time down there and enjoy my birthday. While I’m away I decided to run some old articles that I wrote that you might have seen elsewhere on the internet. This one was for “TotalFootballMag.Com” where I was a columnist, on my thoughts on UEFA and their plans for European football in the long term.

On a side note, congratulations to Manchester United as they defeated Sunderland and got one step closer to winning the title!

I want to talk about UEFA, European football’s governing body, and what they want to restructure and put into place. They are considering a bigger UEFA Champions League and eliminating the UEFA Europa League, by creating a 64-team Champions League tournament to extend the playing of games, so that we can watch on TV all week long. That includes Fridays. Wow! Is this their purpose? No. It’s more likely money and power.

So UEFA’s president, Michel Platini, said let us look at scrapping the Europa League and have one big one, which hosts 64 of Europe’s not-so-top teams, all playing in it.

I thought it was about the elite playing against the elite.

Speaking in Paris, Platini told a press briefing of his excitement at the prospect of sacrificing a league just so they can swell the body’s coffers.

Money, money, money. For you football/soccer fans who follow European football closely, I would like to tell you that the UEFA Europa League teams you only really hear about are the teams that get a second chance to compete in Europe. So, what better way to improve that than to form another Champions League and include all these teams?

Arsenal spokesperson Daniel Fall feels the changes proposed are unfair and geared solely to generating additional revenue for both UEFA and the bank accounts of European football’s superpowers. As competition across the biggest leagues in Europe stiffens, the number of glamour clubs failing to qualify increases, like this season, where Arsenal are struggling for example, but doubling it will make the quality much poorer.

Wait, what? The top seven from the Premier League and the other leagues in Europe would qualify? Then I’m all for it!

This is what I see will happen. There will be a Champions League and I mean a league format, and the top teams will have a squad to play in each week and another squad to play in the countries’ domestic league on Saturdays. That will bring more revenue to the top teams and keep more players happy. The squads are getting bigger and the salaries are rising, so why not create another league? You would then have a Manchester United European team, and a Manchester United domestic team.

We’re already seeing it in the League Cup in England where clubs are playing reserves in that competition. So why not just extend it to the big trophies. What a joke!

I think that the current format for the two European competitions is great: the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League, but as we have already seen in football, it is egos and money that lead to power. What a shame. Soon double the teams will be competing in the World Cup. When will it ever end?