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UEFA Cup 1994/95
Author: 2mas Date: 25-06-2006, 13:09	Why was Rosenborg together with quite a few other national league champions forced to play in the UEFA Cup in 1994/95? It seems like the country ranking is the clue, but if so: Why did Avenir Beggen from Luxembourg compete in the Champions' Cup?

Re: UEFA Cup 1994/95
Author: bert.kassies Date: 25-06-2006, 13:45 Edited by: bert.kassies at: 25-06-2006, 13:48	I don't know much about qualification at that time, but I think you should defintely check this article from the History section of this website. It is written by the guru of qualification issues at that time: Martin Protzen.

Author: panda
Date: 25-06-2006, 15:28

@bert 2mas

I studied this article now. I am not sure, but I think the answer is this:

easy part - yes, the number of champions allowed to enter the CC was restricted at this time.
harder part - I think what happened was that at this time, the team coefficient and the country coefficient were compared, and the club was allowed to take the higher one. Again, the calculation went back 5 yrs.

if I look at the list in that article, I can see that Avenir Beggen's team co-eff was higher than -say- rosenborg's and much higher than the country co-eff of lux. So for 2 (?) yrs they got the last place

Re: UEFA Cup 1994/95
Author: Forza-AZ Date: 25-06-2006, 19:47	@panda Also the champions only knew if they could compete in the CL when all champions were known, so not before the domestic season began it was already known if the champion could compete in the CL next season. If I understand the article correctly.

Re: UEFA Cup 1994/95
Author: Todor Date: 26-06-2006, 09:43	I think the change of the format was introduced at the end of 93/94 season , as I remember too well , Levski became champions in this season , as they had had a nice campaign previous year we hoped for a Champions League berth , but then it was announced Levski would play in the UEFA Cup. The other possibility is that Bulgarian media and FA reacted too late , which will not be a big surprise

Re: UEFA Cup 1994/95
Author: maranton Date: 27-06-2006, 19:50	Between 1994-1996 Uefa decided to let only countries 1-25 in the ranking to send their champions in the champions league. Champions of the countries 26-49 then, had to play in Uefa Cup. That changed in 1997 with the introduction of 1 and then 2 more preliminary rounds.

Re: UEFA Cup 1994/95
Author: panda Date: 27-06-2006, 20:44	@maranton OK- but do you know why the champions of Luxembourg still played in the CC?

Re: UEFA Cup 1994/95
Author: Forza-AZ Date: 27-06-2006, 20:53	@panda See the formula in the article which Bert linked to in the 2nd post of this topic. It not the top 25 of the countryranking, but the 25 champions with the best individual coefficient.

Re: UEFA Cup 1994/95
Author: panda Date: 27-06-2006, 20:54	@forza AZ OK{ great, thanx, it's settled - that's what I guessed from earlier on this thread and reading the access lists, but I didn't read that it was team coeff for sure.

Author: EFC
Date: 10-07-2006, 23:59

Just to clarify, from 1994/95 to 1996/97 UEFA only allowed 24 champion clubs to enter the Champions League (or sometimes the top 23 along with the defending champion if they did not reclaim their domestic title), eight automatically to the group stage and the other 16 played a qualifying round. All other champions clubs had to play in the UEFA Cup and this caused immense controversy at the time. In 1994/95, it is correct that UEFA chose which 24 champions would be eligible for the CL by a combination of country co-efficent and individual team co-efficent. The same system was also used to determine which eight teams went straight to the group phase and which teams were seeded in the qualifying round. For 1995/96 and 1996/97, the same basic format for the competition was kept but UEFA decided to use only country co-efficents to determine which champions would enter - so now individual co-efficents had nothing to do with it, simply the champions of the top 24 ranked nations would enter. Also, the seeding was now also determined by country co-efficents alone - the top eight-ranked nations sent their champions directly to the group phase and the champions of nations 9-16 would be seeded in qualifying, regardless of the clubs own co-efficents.

Re: UEFA Cup 1994/95
Author: exile Date: 11-07-2006, 10:21	It is possible the change from team to country coefficients to decide the top 8 was made to allow Blackburn Rovers to qualify for the group stage in 1995-6 - they wouldn't have done on team coefficients, having lost in round 1 of the UC to Trelleborgs in 1994-5.

Author: esperant
Date: 11-07-2006, 14:04

I would say it was changed not just for Blackburn, but to ensure every top league wasn't going to miss out. Im sure the English FA, or say the Spanish FA if one of their teams were going to be affected, would put a lot of pressure on UEFA to promote some change. I think in a sense it would be unfair though that if a team from Spain who had never been in Europe suddenly come out and win the league, yet would be relegated to the UEFA Cup because a team from Andorra got a lucky draw in the competition within the past five years.

Author: exile
Date: 11-07-2006, 15:01

Blackburn would have had to qualify under the old system, they would not have been in the UEFA Cup.

Teams automatically into group stage 1995 - old system

Ajax,Juventus,Red Star,Legia,Rangers,Real Madrid,Dortmund,Nantes

new system

Ajax,Juventus,Nantes,Dortmund,Real Madrid,Blackburn,Porto,Spartak

so Blackburn,Porto and Spartak benefitted at the
expense of Red Star, Legia and Rangers.

Don't think, somehow, that Portuguese and Russian TV revenue was the decisive factor....

Nothing wrong in changing the system - except they did it AFTER it became clear that Blackburn would be England's representatives and wouldn't be in the top 8 under the current system.

Author: EFC
Date: 12-07-2006, 21:10

I think the system was changed purely to try and further guarentee the participation of all the champions of the most 'important' nations in the Champions League. UEFA's decision to expand the CL from two groups of four at the quarter-final stage to four groups of four at the last sixteen stage was largely motivated by this (although concern about the lack of knock-out ties in the latter stages of the tournament was another reason). Beforehand all champions had to play at least two knock-out rounds to reach the CL. In the first year, 1992/93, the holders Barcelona lost in the last 16 to CSKA Moskva and so did not enter the first Champions League. The following year Manchester United - who UEFA, and particularly Lennart Johannsen, were delighted to see back in the European Cup after a abscence of over 25 years - lost to Galatasaray in the last 16 and so they did not play in the CL either. UEFA wanted these big money-spinning teams to be guarenteed to play in the CL (as did the clubs in question themselves) and so they expanded the group phase to 16 teams so they could place the 8 'best' teams in automatically. After 1994/95, UEFA realised that under some circumstances under the present system, champions from major leagues like Spain, England or Italy could be forced to play in the Qualifying Round if they had not done so well in or been absent from European competitions in recent seasons and so were still at risk of elimination and of being absent from the CL. So UEFA changed the system again to ensure than the champions of the strongest nations always took part. Probably Blackburn's case may have contributed to this, but also Paris Saint-Germain who in 1994/95 had to play the qualifying round despite being a big name and a very strong side at that time and with France in the top four nations in the ranking.

Re: UEFA Cup 1994/95
Author: exile Date: 13-07-2006, 14:03	Exactly. If they can't qualify by beating the other teams - why - we change the rules so they don't have to risk getting eliminated. All for the benefit of Blackburn who finished bottom of their group.