It’s clearly been a scary few days for UEFA as they faced the prospect of some of their biggest teams breaking away and trying to start their own league.
Ultimately the ESL now looks doomed to failure and teams are starting to withdraw, but let’s not forget that earlier today the President made a desperate appeal to say how much UEFA needs Celtic in their competitions.
You can be sure that the fall-out from this will be that these 12 teams seek Champions League guarantees and more money that just kills the competition even further, so let’s hope that the likes of Celtic and Ajax hold Ceferin to his word.
The Champions League has a fundamental flaw in its name as it’s impossible for most Champions to actually get into the main part of the competition, so you really see the 4th best teams from leagues play each other and it’s quickly becoming stale.
One of the main talking points of the competition is the money that’s on offer and regular qualification for Celtic would be huge for their finances, and it would allow them to grow and be in a better position to compete year after year.
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The current setup is designed to eliminate that outcome as much as possible, so we need to see a situation where it does return to the champions of all the big leagues getting access to it.
The current format means that most inclusions are a formality and nothing is earned, so surely both domestic and European competition would be greatly enhanced if places were limited and teams had to fight and claw their way to get back into it each year.
Suddenly it becomes more important because of the work that it’s taken to qualify, and if we allowed a greater variety of teams then the wealth would be better distributed and the competition would be greatly enhanced.
What Celtic need to see is the champions of Scotland getting into the group stages every year – obviously that would be the Rangers next season, but it adds an extra edge to the title race and an added incentive for each club to push as hard as they can.
Most fans are unlikely to have the faith that this will happen as the authorities care far more about money than they do abut genuine competition in the game, but UEFA now have to make changes to benefit the “smaller” nations too after those comments this morning when it looked like it was all falling apart.
I’ve just written something that echoes your sentiments and I think this is our one and only opportunity to have a voice. With the current turmoil and UEFA belatedly praising the likes of ourselves, we need to be ruthless. So Lawwell is thought of well at UEFA. Great; before he retires, he should ask that either the winners automatically qualify for the group stages each year (winners of the SPL) or the top two teams have only one qualifying round (or the winners don’t and runners up do). This would help Scottish football but also maybe ask if 3rd place can have less qualifying rounds for the Europa league. Why not ask? They harp on about how important we are to European football so why not ask for them to demonstrate that. Because within 6 months our chance will be gone, the dust will settle and we’ll be battling as usual through a bunch of qualifying
The FSE (football fans of Europe) are asking for the same. I believe there are 55 nation members of UEFA and 5 of those nations have been dictating how the Champions Cup should be run which has led to them lining their pockets with 4 teams from these 5 leagues being guaranteed access each year. I ask that the other 50 nations now demand that all champions of their own domestic league automatically qualify each year o the champions cup. While the top 5 are and UEFA are in disarray let us demand the above and if not let us abandon UEFA and the 5. We need to act now before it is too late.
We are a non entity in Europe now. Time to face facts. We are entitled to absolutely nothing after years of abject failure trying to reach the CL. We need to start competing again. I don’t want to see us embarrassed in Europe any longer. That will take a huge structure and culture change at the club. Can’t see it happening. Can’t see us in the group stages of CL again tbh.