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Author: babasol
Date: 17-10-2009, 13:54
Edited by: babasol
at: 17-10-2009, 14:07

What do you think about CL with 40 clubs in GS?
This year we have only 7 clubs in CL/GS from midlle ranking countries (7-13),it was never hapend before,also we have a 5 clubs from low ranking countries(14-53),one less than last year.But,on the another side, we have a 20 clubs from Top 6 countries,what also never hapend before.I think we need some changes,it would be much beter with 40 clubs in GS.
3-th QR/CL for non champs would be between 18 RU clubs from countries 10-27,4-th QR/CL would be between clubs from Top 9 countries and winers from 3-th CL/QR.So we would have 4 more clubs in CL/GS from midlle or low ranking coutries.
Another 4 clubs would come from 4-th QR/CL for champions.
In GS/CL system would stay the same,just 10 groups with 4 clubs.
After GS,I would make 4 groups with 5 clubs,with same system like was in UC/GS last year,every club has 4 matches,2 at home and 2 outside,just first two clubs pass groups.Then coming QF,then SF and finals!
I think such system would be much beter,and midlle and low ranking countries would have more clubs in CL/GS!

Author: Wak
Date: 17-10-2009, 15:31

Do you remember all the criticism over the UEFA Cup when it used the 5-teams single-round-robin groups ? Do you remember all the problems it had ? The advantages ?

Just an advice: if one formula has been abandoned, there's a good reason to this.

Disadvantages of the formula (the 4*5 second group stage you're putting forward):
* the intermediate tables are hard to follow and to understand, because at no moment do the 5 teams have the same number of games played;
* a team can be eliminated at the end without playing;
* a team can be qualified by winning against a team that's already qualified/eliminated;
* the draw, or the distribution of home and away games has a huge impact: if you move to play against a team untouchable on their pitch, and receive a minnow at home, that's not the same than... vice versa. And it can change as much as the Quarterfinals fixtures! If this is fair, you need first to take measures against booing crowds (about 100% of them).
* 5 teams means 5 matchdays per "round" - with 11 dates and not 8

Advantages:
* can be good to get a power of 2 : from 40 teams to 16, or 20 to 8...

Also, some remarks on the in-depth reason of your proposal to extend the group stage to 40 teams, and create a group stage of 20 teams:

The UEFA wants to protect the brand "Champions league" by allowing more champions in the Group Stage through a quota measure. This season until 2012, we'll have 18 champions and 14 non-champions, which keeps the Champions League its select club league look.
--> Allowing more non-champions from Below #6 is not the solution, because they will fail later.
--> Allowing more champions would be ridiculous, since some of them already there this season will lose 4, 5 or 6 of their group stage matches !
--> More weaker teams means less giant confrontations in earlier stages. The Group Stage value is already reduced by the large gap between a kind of Top12 and the invitees who are already happy with being there. No need to have more invitees. Champions League is not supposed to be easy, is it?
--> The group stage of 20 looks like the past "Second group stage" (2000-2003) which was taken away because:
* when the big clubs face each other, it's better when one of them is out at the end (knock-out match), rather than concentrating on beating the weaker teams in a group (group stage) and create fake confrontations
* if middle clubs progress to the 2nd group stage, they will probably fail in the 2nd: the 2nd group stage will be less valuable than a knockout round.

Also, it seems you've not been thinking about the 3rd-placed of your 1st group stage, which are normally 8 (and not 10) and go to Europa League's Round of 32. With your formula the EL-R32 would be with 34 teams.
Actually, the formula is the same as in the FIFA World Cup, with just home-and-away matches replacing single matches. There was already a try to extend the World Cup to 36 teams to make more countries benefit from a participation, but it was quickly put away because all the possible formulas were unfair.
This formula is one of the best existing for a football competition such as this one, with the situation that we have now.

Author: babasol
Date: 18-10-2009, 13:25
Edited by: babasol
at: 18-10-2009, 13:29

I think this formula what we have right now is very unfair to midlle and low ranking countries.But its great formula for Top 6 countries,they have minimum 15 clubs direct in GS and 5 clubs in PO and one club in 3th round.So, allways they will be apsulutly dominant in GS/CL with minimum 15-20 clubs in!
If we keep such formula with 32 clubs in,all RU,3th,4th clubs should play in Q round 4,3,and 2.So,only 12 champs from Top 12 countries should go direct to GS and champion of CL!
So 19 places in GS/CL would be free for clubs from Q,without any limits!The best 19 clubs from Q would go to CL/GS!
Take a look!
PO/CL-12 RU clubs from countries 1-12+7 champions from countries 13-19+ 19 clubs from 3th round

3thR/CL-6 3-th clubs from countries 1-6 + 7 RU clubs from countries 13-19 + 6 champions from countries 20-25 + 19 clubs from second round

SECOND ROUND-3 4-th clubs from 1-3 + 34 clubs from round 1 and so on!

With such formula where all non champions plays in Q rounds,we would have a lot of advantages!

1.much more champs would play in CL/GS!
2.really the best clubs would come in CL/GS,no one is prefered!
3.QR would be much more atractive with many big names in!
4.in such formula weak clubs like Debrecen,couldnt pass to GS!
5.CL wouldnt be boring like now,every year will be many deferent clubs in!

Author: Cirdan
Date: 18-10-2009, 20:45
Edited by: Cirdan
at: 18-10-2009, 20:50

Why is it unfair to the middle countrys? Their teams played and failed in qualification. The only reason that they might get more teams if you put the top 6 2nds and 3rds into qualification is because some top teams will knock each other out, how is that fair? And what does a 2nd team from Ukraine, Turkey or Scotland add to the competition, if they can't beat the 4th and 3rd of the top countrys? They already have another team that plays CL, they don't need a second one unless it deserves that.

That we have 20 top 6 teams this season is because all the strongest runnerups from mid- and low countrys failed to prevail against the teams from the big 5 in the playoffs, without exception. But lucky for them, a situation where no 2 big 5 teams meet in the playoffs is quite unlikely and won't repeat itself very often.

And it's absolutely not unfair to the low countries. They can now avoid all the big country opposition in qualification.

Anyway, I think an expansion of the CL is very unrealistic. The big clubs want more matches against other big clubs, not more matches against minnows that hardly fill the stadiums.

Author: babasol
Date: 19-10-2009, 00:41

Midlle ranking countries(7-13) had a few years ago 12,13 clubs in CL/GS,now with a new formula they have 7 clubs,maybe in the future they will have more,but maximum for them is eleven!Low ranking countries dont play against clubs from Top leagues,but about 40 countries(14-53) are fighting for just 5 limited places in CL/GS. Deferents between Top countries and anothers countries are biger and biger every year,because UEFA protecting them,they have reserved places in GS,if they play Q they start from PO,so they never before had so much clubs in the CL/GS.If they start from second round Q like the most countries in CL,they would lose some clubs,not only from Top leagues clubs,but also from anothers midlle and low ranking countries clubs!

Re: CL with 40 clubs in GS !
Author: Wak Date: 19-10-2009, 00:46 Edited by: Wak at: 19-10-2009, 00:47	"Let's stop the hyprocrisy" was the reason why the Top-3 third-ranked clubs had a direct GS spot. Slovakia does not deserve as much chances as France, nor does Slovakia compared to Malta. Time is PRECIOUS. We don't have time to eliminate clubs who will never win or who will ever be a real threat to the CL's biggest.

Author: Cirdan
Date: 19-10-2009, 02:06

CL access is not the main reason for the difference between big league clubs and the rest. I mean, Sporting played CL more often than Fiorentina, Pana more often than Atlético, yet look who made it into the next round... Teams like Sevilla or Villarreal win a CL group in their first appearance, while Olympiakos only survived group stage once in 10 consecutive CL years, how can that be if the big league teams are only strong because of CL money/berths? The difference is domestic, it's between what the clubs can earn from broadcasting in the EPL and in the Greek Superleage, a difference that increases with every new contract and a difference that you can't counteract with a change in the CL berth distribution.

Also, in your first post, you clearly lied. It's not the first time we had 20 clubs from the top 6. We had 19 last year , 20 the year before (07/08) and 06/07 it was also 19, and that was when 3 more teams had to go through qualification than now. Plus, like I already said, the 20 this year was only possible because of a huge coincidence, no 2 big5 teams met each other. It's almost impossible that the 19/20/19 will be topped in the next 3 years.

What happened with the change is that the runner-ups from the mid-tier nations suffered and the champions from the lower (and even some of those you count as mid-tier) countries gained. On the long run, I expect that the top6 nations will also suffer a bit, compared to the 19/20/19 of the last 3 seasons with the old system, I expect 18 to be the norm, but that might need an occasional win of teams like Sporting, Celtic or Panathinaikos against a club from the big leagues in the playoffs.

And like I said, I doubt that an expansion of the CL will happen. The quality is just not there. Look at the other thread in this forum, teams from outside of the top 6 hardly ever make it out of the groups these days.

Author: Olympiakos
Date: 19-10-2009, 03:47

Cirdan, you lost a year

It was in 1998-99 season when Olympiakos reached CL quarters....
In between this 10 years we were also elliminated two times for one goal difference (!)
So yeah, if the "success meter" takes into account only qualifications then we were bad, but if my team gets elliminated having 10 points in a group then I have to measure that performance as well. It wasn't like "two times and then the chaos".

Author: babasol
Date: 19-10-2009, 15:54
Edited by: babasol
at: 19-10-2009, 15:56

CL with 32 clubs in started 1999/2000 and Top 5 leagues had 15 clubs inside.
1999/00-15
2000/01-15
2001/02-17
2002/03-18
2003/04-16
2004/05-18
2005/06-17
2006/07-16
2007/08-17
2008/09-17
2009/10-18

+6-th country allways had a 2 or 3 clubs in CL.I think its too much and Top 6 countries should be limited with maximum 16 clubs in CL/GS!
Like this clubs from anothers countries just have no chance,its not CL,its competition between top 6 countries!

Author: Cirdan
Date: 19-10-2009, 18:55
Edited by: Cirdan
at: 19-10-2009, 18:59

Why would they have no chance? In the last 3 qualifications, the middle and lower country teams had 16 chances to knock out one of the big5 in qualification, and they failed each and every time. Or look at the numbers in the proportional-formula-thread: the big3 teams had 12 teams qualifying for the group stage and 11 teams in the 2nd round last season, on the other hand there were 13 teams from #7 and lower and only 2 qualified for the 2nd round. If they'd use some of the chances they get, I might tend to agree with you, but then, if they did, the big nations wouldn't have 18 teams in the group stage in the first place.

And don't get me wrong, I don't want to get more big country teams into the competition. I like that we now have 18 different nations represented in the group stage, for the first time in ages. But I don't think that there have to be 2 teams from Turkey, Scotland or the Netherlands if they can't even beat the 3rd or 4th from the big nations. One per country is enough to grant variety, the second team should only be allowed by merit, and if they can't do it in the qualification, they shouldn't be in there.

Author: ssrree
Date: 20-10-2009, 04:47

Its thrue that Top clubs from Top 5 leagues are too strong for even midlle ranking countries.Just few clubs from anothers countries have some chances with them.Also some very strong clubs from England nearly never played in CL,like Manchester City or Tottenham.So I think CL should be biger with 48 clubs like EL.
In the biger CL much more clubs from anothers countries would have expiriense of CL and they would make a big money there.So after few years in CL such clubs would be much richer and stronger.Deferent between clubs from big countries and the best clubs from litlle countries would be smaller after few years and CL would be much more interesting.
First country(6 clubs) 5 clubs direct and 1 club in PO
Second and third countries(5 clubs)4 direct and 1 club in PO
4-th,5-th and 6-th countries(4 clubs)3 direct and 1 club in PO
7th,8th,9th countries(3 clubs)2 direct and 1 club in PO
10-12th countries(3 clubs)1 direct and 1 in PO and 1 in 3th round
13-19th countries(2 clubs)1 direct and 1 in 3th round
19-24th countries-1 club in PO
25-30th countries -1 club in QR3 and so on

Like this we would have 22 clubs from Top 6 countries direct in CL,from midlle ranking countries(7-13) 10clubs direct in GS,from low ranking countries (14-19)6 clubs direct in GS.
Ten clubs more would come from Q/PO!
48 clubs would play in 12 group with 4 clubs(6 MD)24 clubs pass groups.Second round is again in groups,6 groups with 4 team, but with 4 MD,like we have in basketball,clubs whitch pass first group brings points from matches with another team whitch pass groups in second round group,so this two clubs dont play again in second round group.Here pass just 6 winers of groups+2 the best second clubs and they play QF,than SF and Finals!
All together we have 6 MD in first round group,4 MD in second round group,2 MD QF,2 MD SF and 1 MD F,all together 15 MD!
Second round groups we colecting groups together without clubs from same country in the same group,of course!

Re: CL with 40 clubs in GS !
Author: Wak Date: 20-10-2009, 12:44 Edited by: Wak at: 20-10-2009, 17:41	Don't mix two things: * when some formulas can bar some clubs from ever winning the CL: Anderlecht, Sparta Praha, Rapid Bucaresti, Aston Villa... * when economic logic bars some clubs from ever winning the CL: Dudelange, Paola Hibernians, Tre Fiori, Getafe... The economics are also in the 1st, for instance, the problem here is the formula for money distribution.

Author: JK
Date: 21-10-2009, 11:03

Every team in Europe can THEORETICALLY win the Champions League now. They just have to win their national league, qualify through the champions path for the group stages and win the games after that. So even the champion from San Marino has now the chance to win the Champions League.

Of course in REALITY the huge difference in income between the champions of the different leagues will prevent that. But that is really not alone the fault of the money clubs have, when they play regularly in the Champions League. The difference is already mainly based in the difference income possibilities of the national leagues. A club from Slovenia will probably never get the same amount of broadcasting money at home than clubs from bigger countries. The tricot sponsor won't pay as much money and they won't sell as much merchandise articles. Slovenia has just the big disadvantage that it is quite small, which means less potential viewers and fans which is the cause of less money.

I don't see how that could ever change, regardless of the way the CL is changed. As long as there are national leagues and as long as leagues from small countries don't get many viewers, there will always be that economical big gap.

Author: ssrree
Date: 21-10-2009, 14:15
Edited by: ssrree
at: 21-10-2009, 14:19

@JK If you give 3 direct places to Slovenian clubs in CL/GS next five years,Slovenia will sure come to Top ten countries!Its worth for all another litlle countries too,not just for Slovenia!
The best clubs in Slovenia now worth by transfermarkt about 6,7 milions each,all three together about 20 milions euro!
If such clubs, play five years non stop in CL/GS they will earn about 50-100 milions euro,each club.So after 5 years they will worth much more then today and they will be much stronger!
For clubs from litlle countries is much more important to play in CL,because they cannot make a big money in domestic leagues, but with such formula like we have today its not posible.In the CL is just 5 places for champs of countries 14-53,so if club once in 5 year come to CL/GS its a good result!

Author: Cirdan
Date: 21-10-2009, 14:30
Edited by: Cirdan
at: 21-10-2009, 14:40

You overestimate the impact of the CL. Your Slovenian Clubs might earn 10 mio/year in the CL (probably it will be less, especially if you get more clubs into the CL, but let's take 10). Right now, I would estimate that the richest Slovenian clubs make between 10 and 20 mio Euro per year, so with CL money flowing in, they'd be at max 30 mio/year.

That's hardly enough to keep you in the first division in the big 4 leagues. Average German clubs have budgets around 50 mio, the better clubs, those that play EL and CL, have 70-120 mio, Bayern is around 300 mio. And it's about the same in the other big leagues, and big clubs from mid-tier leagues like Ajax, PSV, Fenerbahce also have budgets above 50 mios. 10 mio/year is not enough for clubs from smaller leagues to catch up

Author: ssrree
Date: 21-10-2009, 16:22
Edited by: ssrree
at: 21-10-2009, 16:26

In CL all clubs making minimum about 10 milions,if they lose all the games! If club takes some points there,they earning more!When club play in CL/GS they can find much stronger sponzors too,also they make money from full stadiums,from selling dress and so on!
I didnt say that Maribor or Koper will become Barca or Manchester United if they play few years in GS/CL,but they will become much stonger clubs and they will not worth anymore 6 or 7 milions euros,but 60 or 70 milions euros! Its a big deferent!
But Platini protecting the Top 6 countries clubs(15 places direct and 5 clubs in PO,and 1 in 3th round),and he limited low ranked champions to just 5 clubs in CL.
2001-8 clubs from low ranking countries(14-53) was in CL/GS,and now we are limited on just 5 clubs!

Author: JK
Date: 21-10-2009, 16:42
Edited by: JK
at: 21-10-2009, 16:58

@ ssrree

If you give three direct places for Slovenian clubs for the CL/GS, then you must do the same for at least all countries, which are above Slovenia in the rankings, and to those directly under Slovenia two and a little further down one. Otherwise it would be more than unfair and all other countries wouldn't accept such a change. That would of course mean than the CL/GS would be MUCH bigger. That would mean money wise:

1. The CL/GS would be devalued, because there will be more games, which interest not so many people, which of course mean that broadcasters, sponsors, fans don't want to pay so much for those games.

2. The prize pool for the CL/GS will be divided among MUCH more clubs. So everyone get less.

3. And of course Slovenia can hardly minimise their money disadvantage to countries above them in the ranking, when more of their clubs are also playing in the CL/GS and earning money there.

Clubs from countries with a population from under 20 mio. (the smaller the harder) will probably always have a disadvantage to clubs from a country with over 50 mio. Of course when a big country is relative poor and a small country is relative rich, the difference may not be so big because you can get more money from richer viewers/fans than poorer ones. But overall the potential amount of viewers in a country have a HUGE influence about how much a club can earn in the domestic leagues. And without much money from "home", it is hard to advanced in Europe.

BTW I only mentioned Slovenia randomly as an example for a small country.

Author: ssrree
Date: 21-10-2009, 16:55
Edited by: ssrree
at: 21-10-2009, 17:01

I think you very clear understand what I told you,but you dont want to understand.In the litlle countries we have much bigger and more popular clubs then some Sevilla,Wolfsburg,Fiorentina and so on,but problem is money!!! UEFA dont giving a real chance to the big clubs from a litlle countries,they limited 40 european countries to just 5 champs plays in CL.Its a shame! I hope that Russia and Ukrainne or some another countries will soon come in Top 5 and France will fall down,then Platini will change formula in the same day!

Author: JK
Date: 21-10-2009, 17:52

@ ssrree

Slovenia has a population of around 2 mio. So a national broadcaster has only around 2 mio. potential viewers and people who would pay for a TV broadcast of football. And sponsors know that. So they won't pay enormous amount of money for advertisment on tricots and banners in the stadiums.

Now look at the situation in big countries. As an example I describe the situation in Germany. The pay TV channel Sky Germany has 2.4 mio. subscribers (that is by the way a very small number for such a big country). Most of them can watch the Bundesliga and many can watch European games. So there are already more potential viewers for the Bundesliga, than Slovenia has as a population. And there are free TV summarisation of the Bundesliga, which are watch by millions. When it comes to Europe there are also on one hand those Sky viewers, and on the other hand free TV viewers, because some games from the CL and EL are shown there which again are watch by millions of people.

All those viewers mean in the end, more money for the clubs. Even relative unpopular clubs with not so many fans benefit from that.

It is sad, but it doesn't matter so much how popular a club is in its own country, if that country is quite small. Popular clubs from bigger countries have still an advantage and even clubs like Wolfsburg, which has less fans than some clubs in Germany's 2. Bundesliga and perhaps less fans than Slovenia's most popular club, will still earn more money.

Changes of the CL won't make a difference in this regard. Within a domestic league prize money may make a difference between the clubs, which otherwise live under the same terms and conditions. But between clubs from different countries, it really matters how much money they can make at home.

When it comes to more clubs from smaller countries, my comment above describe why that doesn't make such a big difference money wise. And Russia and Ukraine aren't small countries when it comes to their population. Russia is with 142 mio. the biggest country in Europe and the Ukraine with 46 mio. also quite big. That means that their domestic leagues are already watched by many people which mean a lot of TV and sponsor money and a lot of fans who pay for tickets and merchandise articles. They are only a little handicapped in regards to the big 5 because their population earn overall less than those in western Europe. But in the case of Russia that really big population advantage probably already compensate most of that handicap, which is also to a lesser amount true for Turkey. With a better economy and therefore a richer population, clubs from Russia, Turkey, Ukraine can catch up to the big 5. I don't see that possibity for clubs from small countries.

Author: exile
Date: 21-10-2009, 18:14

But surely, if, say, Maribor are playing Barcelona, both clubs should get a fair reward? In a similar argument over rugby, the "big" team were told to try to seek a fair agreement or face having to play endless matches against their own reserve team, which no-one is going to watch.

Of course in the case of Europe the big clubs have an option of forming their own "breakaway" league. Perhaps 16 to 32 teams. And that's maybe big enough not to worry about the other teams.

In boxing, the more popular and better-known boxer gets the bigger share of the takings. To some extent that's justified - but how far should this go? Particularly when the outsider actually wins but still ends up with a tiny share of the money (Rubin Kazan v Barcelona).

Author: badgerboy
Date: 21-10-2009, 18:31

I guess I'm foolish to even enter a discussion with ssrree - who believes Platini is anti-"small country" when in fact he's totally the opposite.

The "idealistic Platini" years ago actually wanted the CL to be for Champions only and something like a 256 team straight KO UEFA Cup but of course when he becomes a "football politician" - one with even the remotest hope of getting elected he realised such things were pure fantasy.

I'm not sure what you (ssrree) exactly want but I assume it's a kind of football equivalent of the European Union but for the whole of Europe regardless of politics where the rich countries pay lots of money to help subsidise the poorer (but rich in historic terms) clubs in less well-off countries?

At the moment even apparently relatively rich countries like Russia & Ukraine pay almost chuff all for their CL rights (you can get an idea of this by seeing how much Russian & Ukrainian clubs get for their market share compared not only to the "big five" but also to a country like Holland). Probably just by getting clubs into the group stage (certainly by winning a few games) their clubs probably take out more money than the TV stations in those countries pay in so they already get subsidized a bit. I'm not convinced personally that "wealthy Western viewers" should be having even more of their money diverted to foreign clubs - especially as this money would only go to help certain clubs in those leagues dominate their domestic game even more than they already do!

By the way it's also insane to think that if you had a CL with 3 Slovenian clubs (lets stick to the example - no offence to Slovenia) instead of 3 English or Spanish clubs they would get the same money. English TV pays the money it does to watch a certain number of English clubs and all TV companies pay what they do to some extent because they know they will get the chance to see the top European clubs. I'm not sure who would pay much at all to watch 3 Slovenian teams - apart from Slovenian TV which might double or even triple it's payments. But 2 or 3 x bugger all is still bugger all & wouldn't make up for the plummeting payments from everywhere else.

Author: badgerboy
Date: 21-10-2009, 19:00

"But surely, if, say, Maribor are playing Barcelona, both clubs should get a fair reward?"

But isn't the fact that around 50% (actually more but I can't be bothered to work it out exactly) of all CL prize money is paid out based on Participation & performance fair reward enough?

Last year Zenit from Russia - population approx. 142M got €1.538M from the market pool. PSV from the Netherlands - population approx. 16.5M got €19.556M.

Based on the fact that the market pool should (roughly at least) be a proportion of the money paid by the country concerned for it's TV rights this means that Russia paid about 1 cent per head of population for it's CL coverage while Dutch TV paid €1.18 per head of population - 118 x more.

Even if you ignore the population side of things Dutch TV seemingly paid more than 12x as much to show CL football as Russian TV. But when you take into account the performance & participation payments paid to all clubs PSV received a little more than 3x as much money as Zenit for the same performance (GS elimination). Putting in a bit more than 7% of a pot & taking out a little over 24% seems like a pretty good deal to me...

That's forgetting about Ukraine of course. An even smaller TV market - €1.029M out but two clubs taking "appearance money" amounting to €15.429M. So - again compared to the Dutch - 5% as much in but 37.6% as much out.

Author: ssrree
Date: 21-10-2009, 19:28

JK-I dont talking here about big countries like Russia,Turkey and Ukrainne,no problem for them,they allready have a very strong clubs and in the future they will be only stronger and better.I am talking about many litlle countries in Europe without clubs in CL.Its normal that clubs from bigest countries making much more money in domestic ligues,and they will be allways richest and beter than clubs from a litlle countries.
Do you know any others sport that 6 countries have 15-20 clubs in competition,and 40 countries have just 5 clubs in competition for European champion?
No way,its only in football in CL,because its a very big money in!
Top 5 countries keeping positions there and they dont let more clubs from anothers countries in! In future deferent between the bigest european countries(England,Spain,Italy,Germany,Turkey,France,Russia,Ukrainne)and the rest will be bigger and bigger!I think its wrong politic of UEFA!

Re: CL with 40 clubs in GS !
Author: ssrree Date: 21-10-2009, 20:28 Edited by: ssrree at: 21-10-2009, 20:29	Take a look what is happend with some strong football nations in the last ten years!Netherlans,Greece and Portugal always had 5,6 clubs in CL/GS.Last year was first,that they had only 4 clubs in GS,this year they have only 3 clubs in CL/GS! Defeent between big countries and anothers countries is bigger and bigger,its UEFA makes!

Author: Axel
Date: 21-10-2009, 20:32

if you allow me to say just some notes...

Always when I'm reading those kind of topics like 'clubs will get MUCH better when they get into the CL & get more money', then a club called Rosenborg comes into my mind.
I don't how often they were in the group stages, probably ten times, well, so I guess they must have get so much money that they must regularly pass the group stage now. But that's not the case.

All clubs you know as 'Europe's elite' were not grown by money from CL. They were grown due to commercialisation & globalisation of football.
The best players of the world played and will always play in Spain Italy England.
So the format changes 10 years back in time helped clubs from those countries to make more money with their attractiveness while possessing the best players in the world.
In the Champions League when it was only for Champions, one of Real or Barca (just for example) was not in competition, so they couldn't get that amount of money from sponsors & tv revenues, because only a small part of best players participated in CL.
Now, everything is more and more commercialized. Each of those elite clubs with the best players participates almost every year, so the attractiveness & the money they made increased from year to year.
For clubs like Man United, incomings from CL were a good extra, but it's not too essential. Essential is the participation itself, to get players, sponsors, fans, ergo sponsors, ergo players...
The money comes from domestic tv revenues and sponsors, but this is getting more and more globalised (EPL) due to risen technical standards & increasing interest in football, therefore we're talking about globalised tv money, globalised sponsors, globalised interests...

With 10 million Euro each year from CL you will never ever be able to build up a team that attracts sponsors from all over the world or bring you domestic tv revenues from abroad.
If you want to break the phalanx of the global players, you need billionaires (Shakhtar) or big companies (Wolfsburg) to sponsor teams individually.

Author: ssrree
Date: 22-10-2009, 07:22
Edited by: ssrree
at: 22-10-2009, 07:26

I think a big clubs from low ranking countries needs some international competition too.Its not posiblle in CL and EL for the most big clubs from low ranking countries.I think all litlle countries should have a very small first league with maximun 10 clubs and to finish domestic championat till the New year,after winter break to start international league with the best clubs from anothers low ranking countries.Like this all big clubs from low ranking countries would have enough strong matches and they would earn much more money.Its unposiblle with such formula in UEFA leagues!

Author: Joshuacht
Date: 22-10-2009, 09:49
Edited by: Joshuacht
at: 22-10-2009, 09:51

@ ssrree

You want a new European competition, where the champions of smaller countries will play in January-May? But can they also play in the CL(Q-rounds)? And what to do with the non-champions in their domestic leagues in the period January-May?

I agree with you that there should me more interesting/tough games should be for mediocre teams. What do you think when all domestic leaugues will reduce 2 teams and make use of the new setup with 64 teams in CLGS and ELGS?

Author: ssrree
Date: 22-10-2009, 19:08

@Joshua-I would like CL and EL with 64 clubs,then all the best clubs from the low ranking country would have much more strong matches and they would make some money there.But I dont belive that UEFA would let so many clubs in CL and EL.
I think all litlle countries needs a domestic leagues with 8 or 10 clubs,not more.Because,this ten clubs would be stronger!With 18 MD domestic leagues are finish till the winter,then few the best clubs going to play international league with the best clubs from anothers low ranking countries.It would be very attractiv matches and full stadiums.I am from Croatia and we have a two big and very popular clubs,Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk,if they play against Austria,Salzburg,Rapid,Debrecen,Ferencvaroš,Honved,Sarajevo,Partizan,Red Star,Žilina,Sparta,Slavia,Slovan B.,Dinamo B,CSKA Sofia stadions in Zagreb and Split would be full because such matches are much stronger then in our domestic league!
Such international league could be only from February till May,off course,just for clubs which dont plays in CL or EL in the spring!
But if you look low ranking countries,nearly no one club play in the spring,the most clubs finish allready in summer with euro leagues!