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.
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European football’s governing body, UEFA, has announced drastic changes to Champions League’s format.
UEFA have called the changes “an evolution not a revolution”, and the Champions League group stage will continue to feature 32 clubs, but the changes mean there will be fewer opportunities for sides from lesser leagues around the continent. “We spoke to everyone. the feeling we had was that they always wanted to stay”. Spain, Germany, and England now have three teams as automatic qualifiers plus one play-off place.
The new system while guaranteeing more places for the big leagues and their clubs, does not guarantee Champions League participation for the big clubs like Manchester United, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Liverpool or Chelsea who all failed to qualify through their domestic leagues this season.
The fourth ranked league, now Italy, have only two guaranteed places plus one in the playoff round.
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”.
Arsenal will also be backed to secure a place in the knock-out stages once after being drawn in Group A with Paris Saint-Germain, FC Basel and Ludogorets Razgrad, the champions of Bulgaria.
It is understood representatives from UEFA and the European Club Association (ECA) discussed a variety of options to ward off the threat of a breakaway Super League.
Pep Guardiola will return to Barcelona with Manchester City as well as tackling Scottish giants Celtic after being handed a tough Champions League draw.
“It is obviously a hard group but it always is in the Champions League”.
The Europa League winners will now also enter the competition in the group stage rather than needing to go through a round of qualifying.
UEFA has confirmed the change will be introduced in two years, as part of its reformatting of European club football’s top competition.
The fourth-ranked league, now Italy, are the biggest winners.
Theodoridis said it was an achievement just to keep any places for teams from the smaller leagues who struggle to compete on level terms with the elite clubs.
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A subsidiary company, the UEFA Club Competitions SA, is to be created to manage UEFA’s club competitions.
