Germany and Italy get extra UCL spot
ITALY and Germany have earned an extra spot each in the Champions League next season after their clubs performed well in European competitions this season, Europe’s soccer governing body Uefa said yesterday.
With the Champions League expanding to 36 teams next season, Uefa said two of the four additional places would be filled by European Performance Spots, which go to associations “with the best collective performance by their clubs” in Uefa competitions.
After the semi-final legs of the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League concluded this week, Uefa said Italy and Germany are guaranteed to finish in the top two of the 2023-24 association club coefficients.
As things stand, Borussia Dortmund are outside the top four in the Bundesliga, but will qualify in fifth place.
Dortmund are also in the Champions League final, where they will play Real Madrid – and should they beat the Spanish giants, they would qualify as winners anyway.
Their German rivals and Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen are in the Europa League final, where they will face Italian side Atalanta, who hold fifth place in Serie A with a game in hand.
But AS Roma are also in contention, with both teams on 60 points, while Lazio are four points behind.
Premier League clubs Manchester City and Arsenal exited the Champions League in the quarter-finals, which hurt England’s chances of improving its club coefficient.
Aston Villa – who were knocked out of the Europa Conference League semi-finals on Thursday – can seal the fourth and final spot if they win their next game to deny fifth-placed Tottenham Hotspur a place in the Champions League.
Meanwhile, Fifa will not consider rescheduling their new 32-team Club World Cup, world soccer’s governing body said yesterday, after global players’ union Fifpro and the World Leagues Association (WLA) threatened legal action if they did not review their plans.
Fifpro and WLA expressed their concern over the expanded competition last week in a letter addressed to Fifa president Gianni Infantino and secretary general Mattias Grafstrom.
Their letter said the global football calendar is “beyond saturation” and national leagues are unable to properly organise their competitions, while players are being pushed beyond their limits, with significant injury risks.
In response, Fifa rejected their claims that the soccer body made unilateral decisions to benefit its competitions in the international calendar.
In the letter, seen by Reuters, Grafstrom stated that they have regularly engaged with relevant stakeholders on the subject of the International Match Calendar (IMC).
Grafstrom said both Fifpro and WLA were involved in discussions on the future of the calendar in 2021 and 2022.
“It should be noted that the views expressed by Fifpro and the WLA during the consultation process influenced the IMC to such an extent that it was closer – and in many ways substantially identical – to the version which was already in place previously, as opposed to the version proposed at the start of the consultation,” Grafstrom wrote.