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Author: eldaec
Date: 12-03-2008, 23:06

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/martin_samuel/article3532949.
ece

Martin Samuel article in the Times about how the Champions League screws up domestic competition, and how the format changes will exacerbate the problem.

He also has a pretty much spot-on assessment of Platini as a great politician but a crappy football administrator.

As ever, his assessment of the problems in the champions league is well thought out and well argued - he points out that the extreme effect of CL money is making many leagues a one or two horse race. And as ever, his prescription for solving the problem is bizarre, messing about with seeding rules as he suggests won't do a thing - the only way to fix this problem is to fix distribution of CL money, so that all clubs from leagues that provide entrants get a share of the cash....

Extract from link above:

""Olympiacos were, by popular consent, the worst team anybody had seen in the last 16 of the Champions League. OK, who knew that the jokes about Barnsley giving Chelsea more of a game than they received from the Greek side would come true? Yet all that Avram Grant's humiliation at Oakwell in the FA Cup on Saturday did was highlight the dismal nature of opponents who are as good as insurmountable in their homeland, yet were lame to the point of embarrassment at Stamford Bridge.

What should worry those governing European football is that Olympiacos have won ten of the past 11 league titles in Greece and are just one point behind Panathinaikos and on course for another, with the distraction of Champions League football out of the way. We think our Premier League is elitist because only four teams have the potential to win it. In fact, we get off lightly.

The economic landscape that Uefa's prestige tournament is redefining across Europe is as uncompetitive as a Soviet election under Stalin. In many European countries, where Champions League entry is limited to one, perhaps two clubs, the wealth of the Champions League has created monopolies, super-clubs that are so powerful that the league is little more than a one-horse race. ""

Author: badgerboy
Date: 13-03-2008, 11:15

Here hopefully is a working link to the article.

It's an interesting article but I disagree with a lot of it.

I think Platini is well aware that some financial redistribution is necessary if you really want to make both European competitions & domestic football (though his concern is only really the former) more competitive. But he also knows that bringing this about is pretty impossible. Because if the richest clubs that generate the most money see that a lot of "their" wealth is being taken from them & redistributed to their competitors then it wont be long before the "son of G14" is talking about breakaway Super Leagues again.

I've mentioned the problem of one club from a "smaller league" getting rich from Champions League money, & thus dominating domestically, myself before. But I think Martin Samuel exaggerates the problem slightly. Although - under the new format - it is more likely for a country's champion to qualify for the CL windfall three or four times in a row - which would make a big difference.

Currently - & partly due to the disparity in distribution of cash based on TV markets - one season in the CL probably doesn't make an awful lot of difference. Levski aren't running away with the Bulgarian league this year. Partizan didn't after their CL appearance some years back.

The Netherlands probably has the biggest potential problem because it has the biggest TV market (& hence biggest market pool) outside the big five. But even there I suspect part of PSV's dominance (which admittedly might get worse after their extra revenue from this year & last) is down to other factors than just the extra CL revenue. Primarily the traditional academy policy of Ajax - their biggest rivals - has been affected more than most by Bosman & the increasing trend for the big clubs to buy the best young players when they are barely out of nappies rather than allowing them time at their "home" club first.

Similarly in Greece there is a lot of talk of corruption in football. I'm not Greek so I can only speculate on how much of it is or isn't true. By now - with so much CL money in the coffers over the last nine or ten years - Olympiakos ought to be able to walk the title every year. But I doubt the CL money was enough to start them off on their run in the first place. Unless it was a case of the CL money making winning the league more important & providing sufficient funds to "make sure" they would continue to win year after year.

Author: Ricardo
Date: 13-03-2008, 12:52

I wonder if the cause of it all is the CL.
I agree that this 'elitisising'of leagues is happening, more and more leagues(domestic and CL!) are dominated by the same teams year after year. But that started already before the CL, it's the whole commercialising of football.
But what should be the resolution accoridng to this martin? only give money to the wealthy? or divide the money evenly over all league-participants? That last idea is interesting: A league is sending a representative to the CL and when that team wins, the league receives money, that will be distributed according to the league standing?

It would be possible - let's say that the startmoney + marketpool would got to the leagues to divide: All an individual club would get would be prizemoney for winning or drawing matches and for reaching the KO-fases. That would solve the problem for 'poor' countries, as they would never pass the groupstage anyway, but keep the problem for the rich. Though if the marketpool is not given to the teams involved, what's left is some 'handmoney'.

What of course then will happen that champions of 'middle' countries like Holland(PSV) would never have enough money to really compete with the 'elite' of the CL. The English PL teams would all get another 20 Mln Euro, at the cost of teh English top-4.
I think marketpool should be more divided to teams playing instead of which TV channel paid for it. People pay to watch teams playing, so pay the teams playing. Maybe there can be a way to divide based on strength, attractivity, coefficient(the only measurable), it could balance this marketpool more - that's very necessary. If they(English TV) pay a lot in England for CL matches, they must realise that they don't pay for only the English teams, if that were true, people would watch the PL! No CL without teams from other countries.

Author: badgerboy
Date: 13-03-2008, 14:40
Edited by: badgerboy
at: 13-03-2008, 15:04

I think with the market pool & the English teams it depends which way you look at it. Yes of course it takes two teams - usually one non-English - to make a match, so it's reasonable to question why the English team should get so much more money than "the other". But at the same time it's doubtful whether there would be much of an audience - in England - if the English team wasn't playing at all.

I'm personally not keen on seeing more English TV money going to the likes of PSV & Steaua - to make it easier for them to dominate their domestic leagues & perhaps be a bit more likely (but not much because of domestic TV wealth) to challenge the bigger CL teams.

I would like to see a more even distribution of CL "market pool" money within the individual countries - including England. Maybe for the top three countries (assuming four qualifiers) a six-way split of the TV cash rather than four. One share to each of the qualifiers, one share to be split between all teams that reach the UEFA Cup groups & one share to be split between the rest of the top division teams in the country. This would mean a minimum of a three way split even for countries with only one group stage qualifier.

Author: Ricardo
Date: 13-03-2008, 15:31

The strange thing in Holland is that we pay to see the big names like Manchester, Barcelona, Milan, but the money we pay for it ends up in Eindhoven(/Amsterdam/..). OK we pay some money to see PSV and Ajax, but also for the other teams!

But indeed these are 2 seperate things:
1 is distributing the money more evenly within a country over the leagues where I agree with you that this should be done, this is also with this article is about.
2 is the distribution of the money over the cuontries, about which I think should also stil be done something. I am not complaining about Holland, Holland is doing fantastic (strange that CL brings so much money, while the deomstic league brings so little....)

Author: Cirdan
Date: 13-03-2008, 15:39

I'd rather have the market pools abolished and the money distributed only on matches played and performance.

I also think that more of the money should go to the UEFA Cup and the teams that do not participate in European competitions, however you have to be a bit carefull that it stays a bit more lucrative to participate in the CL... eg with badgerboys idea, this season Aberdeen would have gotten as much money as Rangers and Celtic, if I understood him right, and I'd say that goes a bit too far with the redistribution

Author: badgerboy
Date: 13-03-2008, 16:32

Cirdan

Actually under my system the Scottish money would've been split in four - one quarter each for Celtic & Rangers - another quarter for Aberdeen & the fourth quarter split between the other 9 SPL teams.

You're right though. My formula isn't perfect as it wouldn't make much sense for one Champions League team to get the same third share as one UEFA Cup team. Then again you could argue that the Champions League team would still be guaranteed a lot more cash just for showing up (see Levski last year) than their UEFA Cup equivalent so it might not be that bad.

It's also a fact that some redistribution to non-CL clubs already takes place. 25% of the revenue UEFA collects pays their own "costs" plus is redistributed to "European Football".