Clubs, Uefa review Champions League format

PARIS: Europe’s biggest football clubs, keen to secure automatic entry into the Champions League, are working with Uefa to review the format of the continent’s elite competition.

The European Club Association (ECA) represents more than 200 clubs, including all the major ones such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Manchester United and Chelsea.

ECA chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has suggested the top clubs should get direct entry into the lucrative Champions League, which European governing body Uefa launched in the 1992-93 season to replace the European Cup.

“We’re starting the review process of the Champions League to see with Uefa which improvements we can bring to have the most attractive football product,” ECA vice-chairman Umberto Gandini said yesterday.

“This is a process that will last six-to-nine months maximum.”

All teams currently have to qualify for the competition by virtue of their domestic league position in the previous season.

Former Germany striker Rummenigge, who is chief executive of Bayern Munich, said last month that a European league was a possibility.

“I don’t rule out that in the future a European league will be founded, in which the biggest teams from Italy, Germany, England, Spain and France will play,” he said. – Reuters