Why does UEFA have such strange ideas? Is it because FIFA, the world body, also has strange ideas and it feels the need to keep up with them? And how come the two never seem to agree on anything?
FIFA has already stated that VAR will be used in this year’s World Cup, supposedly the biggest tournament on the planet. UEFA have decided that it isn’t at an acceptable standard yet for the Champion’s League. So it’s fine for the world, just not for Europe!
We have mentioned, in a recent article, how FIFA’s “best player in the world” often isn’t considered to be the “best player in Europe”.
The World Cup itself isn’t called the “World Champion’s League” yet it has a similar format to the European club version.
Each organisation seems to have it’s own unique and eccentric ideas on how football should be run and both, apparently, appear quite happy to work independently of the other. There is no cross-fertilisation of ideas, no co-operation and the bare minimum of contact between the two.
Manchester United – Winners of the European Cup in 1968 and the Champion’s League in 1999 & 2008
All this leads us to question why the Champion’s League is so called. Yes, it has the champions of the European countries but it also contains at least one other team from those countries and, in the case of England this year, it contains four additional sides to the champions.
Chelsea were the only team who qualified by being the champions so why were the others invited to compete? The only other English team who may have been deserving of qualification were Manchester United because they won the Europa “League” and, by so doing, gained promotion to the Champion’s “League” in the same way the Championship winners in England will be promoted to the Premier League.
But why the second, third and fourth placed teams? What have they won to be considered “champions”?
The answer is, of course; nothing. As we are all too aware, the additional teams are allowed into the Champion’s League to make a competition of it. If only the actual champions of each country were allowed in then the tournament couldn’t be dragged out for as long as it currently is and there would be nowhere near the same amount of profit made, either for the clubs or, more importantly in their eyes, UEFA.
In other words, and as is the case with virtually everything in football these days, cash is king.
Imagine how long the Champion’s League would last as a tournament if it just involved one team from each of the top countries. More importantly, imagine the money men having strokes and heart attacks on realising that the TV companies and sponsors weren’t prepared to pay as much for a competition lasting only a month and only involving around five or six of the very best teams.
No, the Champion’s League in it’s current format is likely to be around for a while yet so there is only one solution. It has to be renamed, simply because the current name is a blatant lie!
Real Madrid – Record 12 times winners!
What was wrong with the original name? The European Cup is what it was for years and, to a great extent, is what it still is. At the end of the day the winners collect a cup having taken part in a knockout tournament. The league stage was only to determine which teams would qualify for the knockout stage anyway and it is only then that the competition comes alive.
So we are advocating a return to the competition being known as the European Cup. This would also remove this stupid situation whereby a competition’s name in no way reflects the quality of clubs competing. Only around 30% of teams in the Champion’s League are actually champions of their country!
Of course this would mean that the Europa League would become the Europa Cup which would also make more sense although the current name does not suggest that the competing teams are anything other than what they are.
The renaming of both European competitions would return them to what they essentially are which is knockout tournaments, not leagues.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 