UEFA, which has faced talk of a breakaway Super League, has said only that it is studying possible changes for the 2018-21 cycle.
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“I welcome UEFA’s decision, it reflects a serious and fair solution for European club football”, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the chairman of the ECA and Bayern Munich, said in a statement.
And Rodgers will have no qualms over pitting the former Fulham winger against his parent club. This is due to a relatively new rule that was introduced by Uefa past year.
It will remove the need for the fourth placed Premier League or La Liga clubs, for example, to negotiate a qualifying round before the group stage, should those leagues remain among the continent’s top four national associations.
In Italy only the top two qualify automatically with third contesting a play-off, which their clubs have failed to negotiate for the last three seasons. Serie A have just two spots following Roma’s elimination by Porto.
The new season of the Champions League officially starts on September 14. Currently, the Europa victor can be made to qualify through the playoffs.
Debutants, Leicester City, featuring Nigerian global, Ahmed Musa will face Porto, Club Bruges and Copenhagen in their first ever Champions League campaign, following last season’s shock Premier League title triumph.
The nightmare draw for Leicester would include Pot 2’s Atletico Madrid, a team who would match Leicester’s 4-4-2 and could beat them at their own game.
The European football body announced a revamp of the coefficient system by which clubs are ranked and will now take historical success into account. The move is thought to appease wealthy former European champions who are looking for an easier route back in to the continent’s top table.
But it has stopped short of guaranteeing places for named clubs, such as AC Milan, Liverpool, Inter Milan and Manchester United.
“Now we are in the Champions League and we have another wonderful opportunity to show our quality”, Ranieri told the club’s website.
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Currently, 22 of the 32 slots are guaranteed to teams from 12 different leagues, including titleholders from Belgium, Switzerland, and Turkey.
