Sinclair said: “It’s not really a point to prove, but being involved in the Champions League is much better for me than when I was at City”. Spain, Germany, England and Italy each get four slots from the 2018-19 season.
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NEIL Doncaster, the SPFL chief executive, last night welcomed confirmation the “champions route” into the Champions League has been retained by UEFA.
Currently, the top three teams from the top three leagues go straight into the Champions League.
The move will be seen as a manner of appeasing the continent’s biggest clubs, especially as UEFA have also revealed that financial distribution to clubs will be “increased significantly” for the Champions League and Europa League and that “historical success in the competition will also be acknowledged in coefficient calculation”.
Celtic’s Scott Sinclair is looking forward to taking centre stage in a Champions League game at the Etihad Stadium after being drawn against Manchester City.
Five-time winners Bayern Munich will play last year’s beaten finalists Atletico Madrid in Group D, which also features PSV Eindhoven and Russian first timers Rostov.
The fourth-ranked league, now Italy, are the biggest winners.
Under UEFA’s current rankings are Spain, Germany, England and Italy would be the top four nations with four teams automatically qualifying for the group stages.
TEAM Marketing now sells the broadcast rights and sponsorship for all UEFA’s club competitions on long term deals that go through to the end of the 2020/21 season but will be extended until 2024 if TEAM hits certain performance targets. The fourth ranked league, now Italy, has only two guaranteed places plus one in the play-off round.
A deal being prepared by UEFA should end threats by some elite clubs to break away and form a closed European Super League before 2021. Currently, the Europa winners can be made to qualify through the play-offs.
There appears to be no possibility of that happening in the near future after European football’s governing body announced the new formats for the Champions League and Europa League for the three year commercial cycle starting in the 2018/19 season.
Currently, 22 of the 32 slots are guaranteed to teams from 12 different leagues, including titleholders from Belgium, Switzerland, and Turkey.
Still, clubs from smaller TV markets can potentially earn a greater share of UEFA prize money after another rule change in how money is distributed.
The coefficient system, which is used to rank the leagues and clubs, will also change, although it shouldn’t endanger the top four leagues.
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A subsidiary company, the UEFA Club Competitions SA, is to be created to manage UEFA’s club competitions.
