HACKED OFF

Mad Moyes: Europe is a closed shop to likes of us . . . thanks to new UEFA rules and Prem Big Six

DAVID MOYES has slammed the proposed Champions League reforms, which would seriously benefit Arsenal and the rest of the Big Six.

From 2024-25, UEFA plans would enable teams who have failed to qualify for Europe’s top cup competition through league position to get a route in through the back door of their historic performance if they had qualified for the Europa League or lifted a domestic cup.

It is a move which has infuriated those clubs striving to break into the European places on a more regular basis.

And it has led to further accusations that the continent’s biggest and wealthiest clubs, who only a year ago were forced into an embarrassing climbdown on proposals for a breakaway European Super League, simply want to make the Champions League a closed shop.

Hammers boss Moyes (above), whose side take on Arsenal today, said: “I don’t think it sits correctly with anyone who is a football supporter.

“I don’t see where there are many people who could speak positively about this being a good process for the future.

“I’m guessing that this is some way to keep them from going into any other leagues, that they’re going to try to reward the teams who are used to the Champions League because they’re going to need the money to keep building their teams.

“But I don’t think it’s what we’ve been brought up on. Maybe a new generation might change that again and quite often in football you’re never keen on change. “Some of the rules we were never keen on at the start and, once you get it, you think, ‘This is OK’. But, at the moment, it seems really unfair to the football pyramid.

“We have a brilliant league here and the Champions League has been an incredible success.

“The games we are watching at the moment, the quality of the football, the teams... but, for example, the group stages are probably the bit in the Champions League now where you think, ‘I’ve seen Inter Milan against Liverpool a few times’ and, from that point of view, if you’re going to go back to seeing the same teams again, we’ll all get pretty bored of it.

“So we want new teams to qualify because through the years we have seen some of the teams who have made it.

“Villarreal last year beat Manchester United in the Europa League and they are now playing in the semi-finals of the Champions League.

“Imagine one of us getting into that situation and then not getting the chance to show what we can do.

“It’s not that we want other competitions made up for the lesser lights, we want to try to mix it with the big boys when we get the chance.

“Football supporters are the bedrock of football. There are clubs saying, ‘Sorry, we’re not really caring about your supporters, we don’t want them seeing a European game, we don’t want them seeing your team in one of the competitions or in a semifinal in Europe, that is really what’s beginning to happen. “We have to stop it before it gets too far

down the line.”