UEFA urged to give bigger share of cake to unlucky 600

ZURICH: For the 80 teams who qualify for the group stages of European club football, the season starts with a glitzy party at the draw ceremony in Monaco and ends with millions of extra euros in the bank.

But while those clubs cash in on the riches produced by the Champions League and, to a lesser extent, the Europa League, more than 600 top-tier clubs who fail to qualify have to feed off leftovers.

Amid widespread concern that the financial gap between Europe’s elite clubs and the rest is still growing, UEFA is being asked by the continent’s domestic leagues to the alter the way it distributes the huge revenue from its competitions.

European Leagues , their umbrella organisation, says in a report seen by Reuters that it wants the unlucky 600 to get a larger slice of the cake.

Fearing the system is becoming fi nancially unsustainable, it has also asked UEFA end payments which are based on a club’s previous record in European competition – something it says creates a snowball effect.

UEFA’s club competitions are expected to rake in 3.25 billion euros ( US$ 3.7 billion) this season but the manner in which that money is distributed has become increasingly contentious.

According to UEFA and European Leagues figures, the 32 Champions League teams will share 2.04 billion euros of that amount with Europa League part icipants receiving 510 million.

Only 7.3 per cent of the total (237.5 million euros) will be distributed in so-called “solidarity payments” and split between the remaining 600 clubs.

The report, which has been sent to UEFA and the continent’s 55 national associations, said this was down from 8.5 per cent in the previous competition cycle from 2015-18.

“The financial gap between participating clubs and nonparticipating clubs is increasing, creating a negative ef fect on competitive balance,” it warned, pointing out that the percentage was more relevant than absolute amounts.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has said since being elected in 2016 that his priority is to improve competitive balance in European football. But he also acknowledges that the big clubs are responsible for the lion’s share of the revenue and has admitted it is a difficult subject. — Reuters