UEFA considering Champions League with promotion-relegation

NYON: UEFA have drafted a controversial plan to introduce promotion and relegation to the Champions League at a meeting at their Swiss headquarters in Nyon, sources told AFP.

There would be four groups of eight teams from 2024 if the proposal is put into action and it would significantly increase the number of European matches and favour bigger clubs.

But UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin played down the plan, saying on Wednesday: “What is important to remember, is that, despite a lot of talk in the media, no decisions have been made. At the moment we have only ideas and opinions.”

The revamped tournament would not see games played at weekends, which would have sparked uproar among the domestic leagues.

The top five teams in each group would be automatically qualified for the next edition, effectively making the Champions League far harder for clubs from smaller countries to play in.

There would be 14 matchdays in the group stage instead of six, with teams continuing to play opponents home and away.

That would necessitate drastic changes to domestic schedules, with league and Cup matches currently also being played in midweek.

Change to European club tournaments has become a controversial issue after Andrea Agnelli, the president of the European Club Association (ECA), outlined proposals for a “pan-European league system” that would greatly reduce the number of teams qualifying from domestic competitions. The UEFA drafts suggest a move in that direction, although the number of clubs in the Champions League would remain at 32.

In recent seasons, the group stage has featured eight pools of four teams.

“The process starts. We’ll see how the discussions and negotiations evolve,” the European Leagues association said in a statement to AFP.

The ECA demanded on Tuesday that UEFA “properly include” them in any plans to change Europe’s elite competition.