Super Champions, here's how it works. Championships on Wednesday, become the Serie B (Ansa archive photo)
ROME – "The reform that was designed at the moment does not allow for a peaceful future for the great European championships". That is to say Premier, Liga, Bundesliga and, of course, our Serie A. And the concern is not by chance that of Luigi De Siervo, of the League of Serie A, while the reform is that in mind and soul of Uefa and Eca, the association of European clubs. A reform that, like the name – SuperChampions – that accompanies it makes it clear, aims to enlarge and fatten the European cups, Champions League at the head, emptying the national championships.
The alignments in this real war that only now reaches the general public, with the strike threatened by De Siervo himself, but which has been moving underground for some time are quite intuitive. On the one hand the big leagues, but not the little ones who with the novelties would have to gain, barricaded themselves in a defensive trench and, on the other, UEFA and the big clubs. In the middle, not even to say it, the money. Many.
To give some numbers, today's Champions League , the richest continental tournament, moves just over 3 billion euros, the Premier League has revenues of 5.3 billion euros ahead of La Liga (2.9 billion), Bundesliga (2.8 billion) and Serie A (2.1 billion). Big numbers, huge, but small. American basketball, the NBA, moves 14 and the NFL is also in double figures. We can do better then. Or at least that's the thought of Uefa and big clubs.
You can do better with a European tournament that puts in front the richest and most well-known clubs, and therefore more attractive for the public, as often as possible. More matches equals more earnings. The number of possible meetings is not, however, infinite and, if the European ones increase, the national ones will inevitably have to decrease. In the number or in the interest. Probably in both. The recipe, or project, should see the light in five years: in 2024.
Access to the so-called Superchampions would not be entrusted solely to the placement in the league, as is the case now, but to a mechanism not yet established which fluctuates between the entry by invitations and a historical correction coefficient linked to the victories and placements of the past. 32 teams would participate and no nation would be entitled to more than 5 teams, at least at the start. The preliminary rounds will disappear and the groups that will be 4, from 8 teams will change. All participants will then play a minimum of 14 games in season.
But the real news is that the future Champions will be or would be a substantially autonomous tournament, with the Europa League 1 becoming a sort of Serie B compared to our Serie A and the Europa League 2 a sort of C series, the only one among other things that would allow entry from the various national championships. The first four teams of each group would go to the round of 16 (home and away matches, possible extra and penalty kicks), while the classified fifths would qualify directly for the Champions League the following year.
The sixths and sevenths would play the play-outs to decide the 4 teams that would qualify, also them, directly for the Champions of the following year and so on while, from the national championships, only 4 teams would arrive in Europa League 2. This would leaven the Superchampions turnover, which however would drain most of the major revenue from the various national championships, making the rich teams richer and smaller and medium-sized ever poorer. Hence the opposition of the main European leagues to the Superchampions project.
"This reform – said De Siervo – would reduce not so much and not only the revenues of the clubs that would be halved (…) but above all our championships would be destined to irrelevance depriving them of the possibility of providing access to the Cups, most of the matches they would have no sporting meaning: it is not only a matter of money but above all that our championship would become little more relevant than a national cup ".
The various leagues threaten strikes and declare themselves "historically" united, but in the face, in addition to the major clubs, they have UEFA and the smaller leagues, who look favorably on the novelty that would guarantee them greater revenues. Uefa and Eca are ready to negotiate, they say until the end of the year, even if the guidelines of the reform are in fact ready. The UEFA will meet the 55 European Federations in Budapest on 17 May, while Andrea Agnelli (president of Juventus but also of Eca) has convened in June, in Malta, all the clubs that are part of the ECA. As for Italian football, in addition to Juventus, Milan, Rome and Inter are also in favor of the reform. It will be a tough battle. The best cards are the UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin and the Bianconeri president, Agnelli.
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Source: Blitz Quotidiano