UEFA have agreed to change the Champions League qualification system in order to allay fears of a breakaway super league led by the European Club Association.
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The top four leagues in Europe will be guaranteed four places in the group stage of the Champions League from the 2018/19 season, UEFA confirmed on Friday. The change was announced after Europe’s top football officials met to discuss the competition’s format in Monaco on Thursday.
Celtic winger Scott Sinclair is looking forward to finally taking centre stage in a Champions League game at the Etihad Stadium after being drawn against his former club, Manchester City.
“From the very beginning, the feeling was the ideal solution for everybody would be a solution in the family”, he told reporters. I don’t think it’s right to go into it and just be the also-ran and accept the three other teams are way ahead of us in terms of talent, financial clout, everything.
– The main changes are in the distribution of the 32 places in the group stage and of the revenue.
UEFA also stopped short of guaranteeing captive places for certain big clubs, another possibility which sources said had been discussed privately in meetings over the past few months.
The top-three ranked leagues also win as their fourth-placed teams no longer have to take part in a playoff, but go straight into the group stage.
The fifth and sixth-placed ranked leagues will get two places each, going to the champions and runners-up, and the seventh-to-10th ranked leagues one place each.
UEFA announced at a press conference on Friday that Europe’s leading leagues in their co-efficient rankings – now the Premier League, Spain’s LaLiga, Germany’s Bundesliga and Italy’s Serie A – will all have automatic qualification for top-four finishers. Far from being a formality for Italy’s 3 rd best team their representatives have lost in 6 of the last 7 attempts at qualifying.
The fourth-ranked league, now Italy, are the biggest winners.
According to the new rule announced in Nyon, France, the top four finishers in Europe’s top four leagues – now English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga and Italian Serie A – will receive automatic qualification in the group stage of the Champions League from the 2018/19 season.
“The top clubs in Europe have huge academies”. “We started this process by having one target, keeping the dream alive having all national associations having access”, he said.
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UEFA has insisted though that the Champions route – which was the path Celtic this week took to reach the money-spinning group stages for this season’s tournament – will be protected.
