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Author: Dragonite
Date: 23-04-2007, 20:58

People ask so much for changes in the UEFA Champions League format that I’ve decided to show here how the Champions League is played in other continents.

Copa Libertadores (South American CL)

32 participants:

Argentina (5 teams):
Banfield, Vélez Sarsfield, River Plate, Boca Juniors, Gimnasia y Esgrima
Brazil (6 teams):
São Paulo, Grémio, Internacional, Flamengo, Paraná, Santos
Bolivia (2 teams):
Real Potosi, Bolivar
Chile (2 teams):
Audax Italiano, Colo Colo
Colombia (3 teams):
Deportes Tolima, Cucuta, Deportivo Pasto
Ecuador (3 teams):
El Nacional, Emelec, LDU Quito
Paraguay (2 teams):
Libertad, Cerro Porteño
Peru (2 teams):
Alianza Lima, Cienciano
Uruguay (2 teams):
Nacional, Defensor Sporting
Venezuela (2 teams):
Union Maracaibo, Caracas FC
Mexico (3 teams):
América, Necaxa, Toluca

ADVANTAGE: Every CONMEBOL member is represented in theirs top competition by at least 2 teams. They even have room to invite 3 teams from Mexico, a member of CONCACAF.
DISADVANTAGE: This can’t be copied by UEFA. While CONMEBOL has just 10 members, UEFA has more than 50 members. A CL with at least 1 team per member would have to have 64 teams. A CL with at least 2 teams per member would have to have 128 teams!!

AFC Champions League

28 participants:

Australia (2 teams): Adelaide United, Sydney FC
China (2 teams): Shandong, Shanghai Shenhua
Indonesia (2 teams): Persik Kediri, Arema Malang
Iran (1 team): Sepahan
Iraq (2 teams): Al Zawra’a, Najaf
Japan (2 teams): Uwara Reds, Kawasaki Frontale
Kuwait (2 teams): Al Kuwait, Al Arabi
Qatar (2 teams): Al Sadd, Al Rayyan
Saudi Arabia (2 teams): Al Shabab, Al Hilal
South Korea (3 teams): Chonbuk Motors, Seongnam Chunma, Chunnam Dragons
Syria (2 teams): Al Karama, Al Ittihad
Thailand (1 team): Bangkok University
United Arab Emirates (2 teams): Al Wahda, Al Ain
Uzbekistan (2 teams): Pakhtakor, Neftchi
Vietnam (1 team): Dong Tam

ADVANTAGE: There is a limit of 3 foreigners per team. So, even if teams from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Japan, or South Korea… have more than 3 foreigners in theirs squads for the domestic leagues, in the AFC CL they can only register 3. This forces every team to also develop (or sign) local players if they want to succeed.
DISADVANTAGE: This is the true “closed league”. These 15 nations, considered “mature”, qualify theirs teams to the tournament, and the other AFC members are relegated to a secondary cup.

CAF Champions League

8 participants:

Algeria (1 team): JS Kabylie
Egypt (1 team): Al Ahly
Ivory Coast (1 team): ASEC Mimosas
Libya (1 team): Al Ittihad
Morocco (1 team): FAR Rabat
Sudan (1 team): Al Hilal
Tunisia (2 teams): Étoile du Sahel, Espérance

ADVANTAGE: No direct entries, not even the holder is qualified to the group stages. Each team must come from qualifiers.
DISADVANTAGE: 7 of the 8 teams are from North Africa this season. Countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Ghana, Angola, South Africa… haven’t a representative in the competition, although they are African super powers. Many African nations never had a representative in this competition, in 11 years.

To get started, UEFA could copy something from the AFC Champions League- the foreigners limit.

--> Kicking out of the CL some teams from top leagues won’t correct the budget differences. Arsenal will keep being richer than Levski, even if Levski plays the CL for 10 seasons and Arsenal don’t.

--> For UEFA, perhaps it’s easier to introduce a rule about a foreigners limit instead of a rule taking 1 spot from many federations (unpopular).

--> UEFA is already trying to do it. They have a “home grown rule” who forces teams to have 8 national players in theirs 25 men squads. That’s still not enough, because teams can still field entire starting 11’s of foreigners.

--> Some teams won’t be happy with this (the teams with a lot of foreigners). Still, UEFA organizes the competition, they can introduce the rules they wish to. If any participant isn’t happy with that, it can simply decline participating (and most likely he won’t be missed).

--> If Arsenal could only use 5 of theirs foreigners against Dinamo Zagreb, Dinamo would have much bigger chances to get through.

--> What have destroyed football at some countries weren’t the CL format changes. The Bosman rule, which allows teams to have as many foreigners as they want to, that was what destroyed football in many countries, which see theirs players transferred to foreign teams at an incredible rate. 15 years ago this wasn’t possible; players remained in theirs teams much longer, and clubs could assemble great teams. Now each year some teams have to sell all theirs best players.

--> With a foreigners limit, natural talent would count as much (if not more) than money. English teams could have as much money as they wanted to, if there were no good English players, they would be in trouble. Countries like Czech Republic, Croatia… who have talented players but can’t keep them, would have much better chances.

“Diversity lovers”, would you prefer your teams to be CL regulars but still weak teams, or you would prefer your teams to be able to keep most of theirs players and so potentially reach the CL by merit?

Author: ikoon
Date: 23-04-2007, 21:44

--> For UEFA, perhaps it’s easier to introduce a rule about a foreigners limit instead of a rule taking 1 spot from many federations (unpopular).

Unpopular where? In a forum with 90% users from top 5-6 countries? I agree.

--> UEFA is already trying to do it. They have a “home grown rule” who forces teams to have 8 national players in theirs 25 men squads. That’s still not enough, because teams can still field entire starting 11’s of foreigners.

Only top 5-6 users have the luxury to consider the foreigner players limits like a prioritar issue, the other are dealing with more important questions, like: how came we never play in CL anymore?

--> Some teams won’t be happy with this (the teams with a lot of foreigners). Still, UEFA organizes the competition, they can introduce the rules they wish to. If any participant isn’t happy with that, it can simply decline participating (and most likely he won’t be missed).

What if Arsenal declines, or another of those teams that you and badgerboy say that will always be missed in CL?

--> If Arsenal could only use 5 of theirs foreigners against Dinamo Zagreb, Dinamo would have much bigger chances to get through.

When do you expect a new match between Arsenal and Dinamo Zagreb and in which competiton?

--> What have destroyed football at some countries weren’t the CL format changes. The Bosman rule, which allows teams to have as many foreigners as they want to, that was what destroyed football in many countries, which see theirs players transferred to foreign teams at an incredible rate. 15 years ago this wasn’t possible; players remained in theirs teams much longer, and clubs could assemble great teams. Now each year some teams have to sell all theirs best players.

I assume that this Bosman rule, it's also responsible with alowing those clubs, after they feast with foreigner players, to play in CL in unreal numbers? Damn, what a angry rebel player can do to football and to what scale!

--> With a foreigners limit, natural talent would count as much (if not more) than money. English teams could have as much money as they wanted to, if there were no good English players, they would be in trouble. Countries like Czech Republic, Croatia… who have talented players but can’t keep them, would have much better chances.

Ok, so what do we do, what do we do? Hey, i got an ideea, how about this: the top countries made their own league close to outside countries. The other also make a league of their own. In this way each the rich and the poor can play matches to their level of football and budget. And how about a new rule, let's say the "ikoon rule": no player from one country memebers of one competition could be transfer to another under the age of 26 years, clause stated in the contract of each player as he sign.

“Diversity lovers”, would you prefer your teams to be CL regulars but still weak teams, or you would prefer your teams to be able to keep most of theirs players and so potentially reach the CL by merit?

--> Kicking out of the CL some teams from top leagues won’t correct the budget differences. Arsenal will keep being richer than Levski, even if Levski plays the CL for 10 seasons and Arsenal don’t.

Merit like champions and runners-up that have direct access, this is more prefferable.

But don't mind me, just explain to these "diversity lovers", how a briliant top 6 users, think that a team could "keep most of theirs players and so potentially reach the CL", without having access to the most important european competiton? Even if the respective team would have access, with such gap in budgets the teams like Arsenal and other will still take the best players, as you said. So maby finaly you realise the purpose of a competiton, which suppose to be more than a obscure budgets contest, so even if the richer clubs won in the final, the victory won't be by outnumbering teams with leseer finacial means, but by outpowering them, in a fair sportive contest, with an eqilibrate numbers of participans for each country.

Author: ikoon
Date: 23-04-2007, 21:54
Edited by: ikoon
at: 23-04-2007, 22:14

The foreigner limitation it is important, but only if reduce 0-2 players for each team in both european and domestic league. It will have no real effect otherwise. As UEFA has no saying about the limit in the domestic competitions, which is a FA decision, the best budgets will take good players anyway, even if they can only be use in domestic league and cup.

More than that, a decision to reduce the foreigner limit should also came with a decision to reduce the spots per top countries. Because, as you admit, the value of top teams, will be reduced and the current spot distribution (obtain with no foreigner limit) will be unrealistic.

You and others have to realise that the raport of 4/1 or 21/32 is not acceptable in a competition, more in one with 53 federations.

Look the examples you gave about other competition on other continents. There is nothing like that. Brasil, for example have more teams, 6, but the minimum is 2, so the maximum raport between the best and weakest in 6/2, 1/3 not 1/4. Also Brasil and Argegentina, best countries, don't have together 2/3 of all teams from competition. Make percent if you like, 2 countries from Copa Libertadores raported to the number of all federation, represent almost the top 6 european countries raported to the number of european federation. And are far from having 2/3 of participants.

Re: Other Champions Leagues
Author: Lyonnais Date: 23-04-2007, 22:20	The foreigner limitation is not possible in Europe because it is not compliant with EU laws.

Author: ikoon
Date: 23-04-2007, 22:30
Edited by: ikoon
at: 23-04-2007, 22:42

Lyonnais is right. I don't even think that such UEFA decision will stand if one or more clubs decide to attack it to a international court.

And, back to topic.

This is not a dispute rich vs. poor. The objective is not to get very close of the richer clubs like budgets, as it is impossible. The budgets are directly influence by each country economy. A investor like Abramocici, choose even other country to invest, if so his new teams have access to more income, from more fronts, from a more competitive and rich league than the russian league, from more advantages in CL, ...

Don't came and tell me that we should stay out of CL untill our economy grows. You only confirm my conclusions about the financial dictatorship of CL.

I just want for someone to give me a good and argumentated explanation, why top countries have so much more CL spots, if not because they bring more money from TV rights, case in which i'm right and is not fair.

Author: Lyonnais
Date: 23-04-2007, 22:38

UEFA are doing a strong lobbying in Brussels so that sport should be considered as an exception. I don't know if they have a chance to succeed but as far as I know, Brussels seems to be a bit more open and flexible than they used to be.
This said, it will be extremely difficult to explain a player that he cannot have the same right as any other worker in the Union. The risk that the European Court for Human Rights (hope that the translation is understandable) breaks such a decision is very high.

Author: Dragonite
Date: 23-04-2007, 22:58

Ikoon,

IF UEFA takes 1 CL spot from each federation with more than 1 spot, there will be 15 federations affected by that.
The 1st, 2nd and 3rd will lose theirs 4th placed teams.
The 4th, 5th and 6th will lose theirs 3rd placed teams.
And the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th will lose theirs runners-up.

Among themselves they will still be 24, so assuming they are much better than the others that will just leave 8 spots to fight for to all the other federations.

For bottom federations, it will still be “impossible” to reach the CL, so who will benefit from this?

The countries from 16th to 23rd; which are most likely to get the remaining 8 spots.

So, a decision that will take from 15 to give to 8… it is unpopular!!

I can answer you why Romania hasn’t played the CL anymore.

Steaua played the CL 3 consecutive times, from 1994/1995 to 1996/1997.

In 1997/1998, they missed the CL because they lost 5-0 against PSG in France after winning the 1st leg 3-0 at home!

In 1998/1999 they missed the CL because they lost 6-3 against Panathinaikos in Greece after picking a 2-2 draw at home.

In 1999/2000, Rapid Bucharest missed the CL because they lost 2-1 away to Skonto Riga after picking a 3-3 draw at home.

In 2000/2001 Dinamo Bucharest missed the CL because they lost twice against Polonia Warsaw.

In 2001/2002 Steaua missed the CL because they lost 2-4 at home against Dinamo Kiev.

In 2002/2003 Dinamo Bucharest missed the CL because they lost 3-1 against Club Brugge away.

In 2003/2004, Rapid Bucharest missed the CL because they lost 2-3 away to Anderlecht.

In 2004/2005, Dinamo Bucharest missed the CL because they lost twice against Manchester United.

In 2005/2006 Steaua Bucharest missed the CL because they lost 2-3 away to Rosenborg.

Finally, this season Steaua returned to the CL, after a 10 years absence, because they eliminated Standard Liege in the qualifiers.

So, in brief, why hasn’t Romania played the CL for so long? Wasn’t it because theirs clubs couldn’t get through Belgian teams (Anderlecht, Club Brugge), Norwegian teams (Rosenborg), Polish teams (Polonia Warsaw)… even Latvian teams!!! Will you dare to create a theory trying to convince us all that Skonto Riga is a multi-millionaire team, impossible to get through, and “poor Romanian teams” were being kept aside of the CL by “evil powers”??

Why other nations haven’t played the CL (ever or for a large period), I won’t bother to write it here too. If you are so concerned, do your own research and see why.

Ikoon, I NEVER said Arsenal will be missed!! I don’t like Arsenal. In fact, I think I said the opposite. I wrote somewhere “Arsenal, AC Milan, Bayern, Valencia… who will miss them? I won’t!”

Arsenal vs. Dinamo Zagreb is possible next season in a CL qualifier… or in any qualifier in any year supposing both teams are in the qualifiers. If Arsenal has to face Dinamo Zagreb using JUST 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 (!!) foreigners, they will have a bad time!

Ikoon, stop acting childish!! The Champions League isn’t a “budgets competition”. Let me see, Juventus is the 3rd richest… and they aren’t in the CL. Newcastle (13th richest) isn’t in the CL either. Schalke 04 (14th richest) isn’t in the CL too. Tottenham (15th richest), Manchester City (17th richest), Rangers (18th richest) and West Ham (19th richest), none of these played in the CL this season. If the CL was a budgets competition, these teams would have played it instead of your Steaua, instead of Levski…

Other curious thing, Tottenham, Manchester City and Everton NEVER played in the CL and they are still among the richest… other teams play the CL regularly (Anderlecht, Olympiakos, Rosenborg…) and they are nowhere near these teams in terms of budgets.

Author: Dragonite
Date: 23-04-2007, 23:09

Lyonnais,

The “home grown rule” is a foreigner restriction “disguised”. If UEFA says teams can register 25 players and UEFA also says 8 of those players must be national players, they are indirectly saying “there is a foreigner restriction of 13 players per team”. Or there will be, since this rule isn’t being applied yet.

Players aren’t “normal workers”. Players work for just 15 years of theirs lives (unlike normal workers who work for 45 years), they earn much more than “normal workers”, which means if they are smart they can spend the rest of theirs lives after retiring without having to work in anything else to collect more money.

Plus, nobody will forbid players to work in a certain country. If there is a foreigners limit of 10 players per team, a Hungarian player has 200 works available in the English Premier League, plus other 200 in the Spanish League, plus 200 in the Italian League, plus 200 in the French, plus 180 in the German, plus… plus… which means he has thousands or works available… if he is good enough he will for sure get one of them… if he isn’t good enough he won’t get one. Don’t the “normal workers” have the same problems??

Author: Dragonite
Date: 24-04-2007, 00:02

Lyonnais,

I’ve read the UEFA regulations for the 2006/2007 CL.

Teams can register 25 players. From those 25 players, 21 are “free players”. The other 4 must be either club trained or association trained. If clubs don’t have them, they can only register 21 players.

I heard these quotas would grow to 6 players next season and 8 players in 2008/2009.

This is great news, in my opinion. I hope they keep growing year after year!!

That’s why Arsene Wenger was so angry!! That’s why Arsene Wenger has Hoyte and Walcott in his squad (2 association players).

Author: badgerboy
Date: 24-04-2007, 11:50
Edited by: badgerboy
at: 24-04-2007, 13:19

Dragonite

Nice topic. I must make a few small "corrections" - or maybe that should be "additions" to your first post though.

The Copa Libertadores actually starts with 38 teams - even more evenly distributed than you show. The Title Holder always gets it's own spot; Argentina & Brazil have five teams & everyone else gets three. The lowest-ranked team from each country and the second lowest ranked from the country of the holders plays a two leg preliminary round to reduce the 38 to 32.

As you say - this "equality" works well in South America with 10 countries + 1 "guest" - but Europe with 53 is rather different.

In Asia the entry is usually 29 teams. 28 of these play in 7 groups of 4 - winner only progresses to the quarters. The Title Holder gets a bye to the quarter-final stage!

In Africa there is actually a reasonable amount of "equality" in how places are allocated. Everyone who wants it (& presumably is financially & politically able) gets at least one entry. 12 countries get two. There is a preliminary round which involves all teams except - this year - the Champions of the four highest ranked countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco & Cote D'Ivoire). These clubs received a bye to the last 32. Two KO rounds are played to whittle the teams down to the 8 that enter the groups.

The ranking of the African countries is interesting in more ways than one!

When the CAF first decided to allow some countries to have two CL teams in 2004 they ranked countries as described by Karel Stokkermans on rsssf.com thus:

"The classification was made according to the performance of the countries in the past 5 years in clubs competitions:

For the Cup Winners Cup and CAF Cup, 4 points were given to the champion, 3 for the runner-up, 2 for the semi-finals and 1 point for a place in the quarter finals.

For the Champions League 5 points were given to the champion, 4 for the runner-up, 3 for clubs ranked 2nd in each group, 2 points for clubs ranked 3rd and 1 point for the last of the group".

So an interesting method - not based on individual matches but simply on reaching the latter stages of competitions.

Where the CAF falls down a bit & where the other "interesting" comes in is that they don't seem to update their rankings. They worked them out in 2002 & entries are still based on those rankings today!

Author: badgerboy
Date: 24-04-2007, 12:54

Dragonite

I also forgot to respond to your enthusiasm with regard to the "home grown player rule".

I think I agree it's a positive step but it's important to emphasise it has nothing to do with nationality. EU law precludes any such rule. Arsenal have plenty of "home grown" players but few of them are English.

One negative aspect of this rule - one I'm just discovering - is that it encourages the bigger clubs to sign players at an even younger age than they might otherwise. If they sign players at 17 or 18 (even if they then loan them out) then those players will satisfy any "home grown" rule. So - just maybe - this is a negative for smaller clubs who now lose players earlier than they might otherwise have done?

Author: ikoon
Date: 24-04-2007, 13:38

So, in brief, why hasn’t Romania played the CL for so long? Wasn’t it because theirs clubs couldn’t get through Belgian teams (Anderlecht, Club Brugge), Norwegian teams (Rosenborg), Polish teams (Polonia Warsaw)… even Latvian teams!!! Will you dare to create a theory trying to convince us all that Skonto Riga is a multi-millionaire team, impossible to get through, and “poor Romanian teams” were being kept aside of the CL by “evil powers”??

Why other nations haven’t played the CL (ever or for a large period), I won’t bother to write it here too. If you are so concerned, do your own research and see why.

@Dragonite,

When romanians teams were eliminated in CLQR2, they were weak, no kind of excuse here, they didn't deserve to go in CL in hell! This is valid for any team that play seeded in CLQR2 or CLQR1 and gets kicked out.

When 2 teams from smaller countries play CLQR3, where in general the matches are harder and the teams closed like value, it is oviuous that only one can go further, from federations with 1 CL spot, only one will be represented in CLGS. It's like having 4 teams from Spain playing against 4 teams from England in CLQR3, instead for Englad and Spain to have 8 teams in CLGS, they will have only 4, instead of 2 good outsiders playing eachother in a lotery CLQR3, they could advance together in CLGS, despite some spot reduction for top countries.

The superior spots it is ovious that offer superior chances to advance to a country, small or big.

Ikoon, I NEVER said Arsenal will be missed!! I don’t like Arsenal. In fact, I think I said the opposite. I wrote somewhere “Arsenal, AC Milan, Bayern, Valencia… who will miss them? I won’t!”

Then please accept my apologises. The absence of those teams associated with the last CL spot in their countries, is one of the main argument of those who reject a slight spot reduction to benefit diversity.

I also will not miss them, and any other team, that don't catch 3rd spot in Spain, England, Italy or 2nd in France, Germany, Portugal.

Arsenal vs. Dinamo Zagreb is possible next season in a CL qualifier… or in any qualifier in any year supposing both teams are in the qualifiers. If Arsenal has to face Dinamo Zagreb using JUST 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 (!!) foreigners, they will have a bad time!

Maby, but this (i reffer to foreigner limitation) affect football quality even more profound than a slight spot limitation. A spot limitation has 3 big advantages, who are easily dismissed:

1. it will unquestionable increase diversity, the not only the diversity in CLGS, but if the things are how i suspect, it will also increase the diversity after the group stage. At least, the chances to have such diversity will be considerably increased.

2. we revive the UC, by sending competive clubs there, previously associated with a constant CL presence; if this came in the same package with a raises in money prizes, then we can really say that we have 2 competitions worth winning.

3. it will increase the domestic competivity, the league competivity with more interesting fights for lesser CL spots between more comeptive teams, in the leagues "affected" by the spot reduction.

The Champions League isn’t a “budgets competition”. Let me see, Juventus is the 3rd richest… and they aren’t in the CL. Newcastle (13th richest) isn’t in the CL either. Schalke 04 (14th richest) isn’t in the CL too. Tottenham (15th richest), Manchester City (17th richest), Rangers (18th richest) and West Ham (19th richest), none of these played in the CL this season. If the CL was a budgets competition, these teams would have played it instead of your Steaua, instead of Levski…

Other curious thing, Tottenham, Manchester City and Everton NEVER played in the CL and they are still among the richest… other teams play the CL regularly (Anderlecht, Olympiakos, Rosenborg…) and they are nowhere near these teams in terms of budgets.

Because the limitation of 4 CL spots EPL has. If the limit will be higher they would have play CL. But so, they can't really compeat with english big 4.

Maby i wasn't so clear; I said that CL is a competiton of budgets, because the spot distribution for CL is made by this criterium, and in special by the TV rights/country, of course not exclusive. Those teams from those countries, happens to be also competive, because of greater finacial means. But the UEFA decision to give so many CL spots, was made considering the finacial part.

Author: Dragonite
Date: 24-04-2007, 14:44

Badgerboy,

I know Copa Libertadores has those qualifiers. I just consider it just “starts” from the group stages… like the UEFA Champions League.

I follow those tournaments, Copa Libertadores and the AFC and CAF Champions Leagues. I can watch many Copa Libertadores games, and unfortunately I can’t watch games of the other 2 competitions but I follow them via internet and then I watch its champions in the Club World Cup. I liked Al Ittihad in 2005 and Al Ahly in 2006.

I also know in Asia there were supposed to be 29 teams. 28 in 7 groups of 4 plus the holder (Chonbuk Motors) directly qualified to the quarter finals. However, this season Esteghlal (Iran) was disqualified for failing to register the team before the deadline. So, it’s just 28. The previous season 4 teams were also disqualified for the same reason. In 2004 Bahrain teams withdrew and they are suspended until now. A UAE team also failed to show up in the last game because they were already eliminated so they are also suspended for 2 years.

So, although “in theory” the format is 29 teams, it isn’t happening for several reasons.

I didn’t know, though, that the CAF ranking was applied based on 2002 results.

The “home grown payer rule” forces teams to have “club trained AND association trained players”. By association trained I suppose English players in Arsenal case, right? That’s why they have Walcott and Hoyte, because they must have 2 English players.
If these quotas keep growing year after year, in a near future we can have 25 players teams composed by 10 home grown players, 10 association players and just 5 “free players”. This would develop both national football (good for national teams), formation (clubs should have players from theirs youth systems) and reduce a lot transfers.

Author: Dragonite
Date: 24-04-2007, 14:52

Ikoon, imagine this season UEFA would have kicked out of the CL JUST the 4th placed teams from England, Spain and Italy and the 3rd placed teams from France, Germany and Portugal.

The 4th placed teams from Spain and Italy, Osasuna and Chievo, haven’t qualified anyway.

The other teams, Arsenal, Lille, Hamburg and Benfica, could be replaced by:

Ajax (2nd Dutch team, eliminated in qualifiers)
Standard Liege (2nd Belgian team, eliminated in qualifiers)
Hearts (2nd Scottish team, eliminated in qualifiers)
Fenerbahçe (2nd Turkish team, eliminated in qualifiers)

And if this had happened, the same federations would have been represented in the CL exclusively anyway. The difference would have been England with 3 instead of 4, France, Germany and Portugal with 2 instead of 3, and Holland, Belgium, Scotland and Turkey with 2 instead of 1.

To increase diversity, UEFA should kick out not only those 6 teams, but also the 2nd placed teams from countries 7th-15th.

Only if they do such thing you will be sure each year there will be AT LEAST 23 nations represented in the CL.

Re: Other Champions Leagues
Author: Kaiser Date: 24-04-2007, 14:57	Respect, Dragonite. But kick so many good teams from CL is cruelly and foully.

Author: ikoon
Date: 24-04-2007, 15:04
Edited by: ikoon
at: 24-04-2007, 15:12

@Dragonite,

First i agree, with the mention that maximum 8th-10th place should have 2 CL spots, after that 1 CL spot.

Ajax, Standard Liege, Hearts, Fenerbahçe.

Second, it is a assumption that these teams wolud have qualify. 3 of them, Standard, Fenerbahce and Hearts being runners-up won't even play CL as their FA would have just 1 CL spot.

To increase diversity, UEFA should kick out not only those 6 teams, but also the 2nd placed teams from countries 7th-15th.

Only if they do such thing you will be sure each year there will be AT LEAST 23 nations represented in the CL.

Finaly we agree with something. I have only 2 mention:

1. there are at least 8 FAs, if not 10 that deserve 2 CL spots;
2. if only top 6 countries would have a spot reduction, it will still increase the chances for more diversity, as we cannot assume that the next FAs will surely take advantage. I agree not as much as in the second case, which is prefferable.

After this reduction, if the dirrect access is also modify, how you suggested to only first 8-10 champions, we could even hope to more diversity.

Author: badgerboy
Date: 24-04-2007, 15:15

"The “home grown payer rule” forces teams to have “club trained AND association trained players”. By association trained I suppose English players in Arsenal case, right? That’s why they have Walcott and Hoyte, because they must have 2 English players".

Sorry Dragonite you've completely misunderstood the rule. It has absolutely zero to do with nationality.

Basically a player is "club trained" if they were registered with that club for three successive seasons between age 15 & 21. Association trained means they had to be registered with any club within the national association for three successive seasons between age 15 & 21.

Aliadiere is a club-trained player for Arsenal. The likes of Senderos & Fabregas will be in future (right now they are "B" Listers - under 21 & been with the club for at least two years).

You can find more information here

Author: badgerboy
Date: 24-04-2007, 15:37

"1. there are at least 8 FAs, if not 10 that deserve 2 CL spots"

How can you possibly say that? England can have four teams in the last 16 of the CL - three in the semi-finals - at least 3/4 teams passing the group stage each year but this is only - due to the "unfair place allocations etc" & four teams is "undeserved" but leagues that give us the likes of Olympiakos (constantly direct in the groups but no passes), Anderlecht (can hardly win a competitive game at the group stage), Dynamo Kyiv (sometimes quite good but still can't get out of groups) are "deserving" of two CL spots?

And don't tell me those countries aren't ranked in the top ten now - Greece have been "top eight" for a number of years - Belgium have been ranked around 9/10 & Ukraine are close to 10th.

1-5 3 spots
6-8 2 spots
9+ 1 spot

or at a push:

1-4 3 spots
5-8 2 spots
9+ 1 spot

Any more countries keeping 2 spots while the top countries lose teams would be worse than a bad joke.

Author: Dragonite
Date: 24-04-2007, 20:45

Ikoon,

I was not assuming those teams (Ajax, Standard Liege, Hearts and Fenerbahçe) WOULD QUALIFY INSTEAD of Arsenal, Lille, Hamburg and Benfica. I was just showing a POSSIBILITY. It was possible that those 4 teams replaced these 4 and diversity in terms of countries wouldn’t increase, because the same countries would be represented exclusively.

If UEFA cuts off 1 team from every nation with more than 1 in the CL (4th team from top 3, 3rd team from 4th-6th and 2nd team from 7th-15th), and if they only have 8 direct qualifying spots for the top 7 leagues champions plus the holder, I will support those changes.

The problem now is go and convince Real Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United, Inter, AC Milan, Bayern… that they can no longer qualify directly finishing just 2nd in theirs leagues, and that if they finish 4th they can’t even play the qualifying round… This will be a big battle, because it’s the participation of these teams (or at least most of them) that makes the CL so attractive.

Badgerboy, I’m disappointed.

I thought at least the “association trained” players had to be national players.

Anyway, if UEFA can create rules about the number of players per country, why can’t they also create rules about the number of foreign players per team?? It’s theirs competition, they can make the rules they want to… I suppose/wish.