Munich-Dortmund “Welcome to UCL reform…ESL is absent”
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(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Boin Jang = The European Football Federation (UEFA) will expand the number of teams participating in the Champions League (UCL) from 32 to 36.
UEFA, which has been preparing for the reorganization of UCL, announced a changed competition method on the 19th (local time).
The new UCL format applies from 2024 to 2033, with 36 teams participating instead of the existing 32 teams.
The tournament is played in a full league, not a group stage.
In the group stage, a team played a total of 6 games home and away with 3 teams in the same group, but now all clubs meet at least 10 teams and play 10 games. Of these, five games are played at home and five are played away.
The top 8 teams automatically advance to the round of 16, and teams 9 to 24 get the remaining 8 tickets through the playoffs.
UEFA explained that it plans to apply a similar approach to the Europa League and Europa Conference League. We plan to discuss expansion of participating teams in the future.
Overall, by increasing the number of competitions, UEFA is able to increase its profits.
In the case of UCL, one additional ticket will be assigned to the third-place team in the country that is ranked 5th in the UEFA rankings, and the other card will be assigned to the mid-sized leagues where no direct right to the UCL Qualifications is currently given to the winning team in their own league.
The remaining two cards have not participated in the Champions League group stage in the past five years, but are given to the teams with the highest club count among the teams that have entered the UCL Qualifiers, Europa League and Europa Conference Leagues.
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Meanwhile, this announcement came the day after the 12 European’Big Clubs’ announced that they would create a European Super League (ESL) to compete against UCL.
Currently, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus (above Italy), Atletico Madrid, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid (above Spain), Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham (above England) have announced their intention to participate in ESL. , Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund (formerly Germany) joined forces in the UCL.
Munich, which reached the top of the UCL last season, welcomed the UCL reform by saying it would not attend ESL.
Munich President Karl Heinz Lumenige said, “We welcome the reforms in the Champions League. We believe that this is the right step for the development of European football. The revised group stage will contribute to increasing the interest and emotional experience of the tournament.”
“I don’t think the Super League can solve the economic hardships of European clubs due to the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19). Rather, all European clubs are allied to ensure that their cost structures, especially player wages and agent fees, are adjusted to suit their income,” he said. “You have to do it” and opposed ESL.
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2021/04/20 08:51 sent