MATTHEW LINDSAY
Celtic right to fear Champions League change
Speculation about a new breakaway league are concerning. But should such talk really be taken seriously? It is, after all, nothing new
WHEN plans to alter the format of the Champions League and ensure all the major clubs from the five strongest leagues in Europe are guaranteed entry into the group stages emerged last week it rightly spread alarm across the continent.
“A very sinister development,” is how Neil Doncaster, the chief executive of the Scottish Professional Football League, described the European Club Association’s latest proposals to Radio 5 Live.
Tweaking the current qualification process would certainly be bad for the SPFL Premiership winners. As things stand, our leading club has a decent chance of making it through via the “champions route”.
The fact that Celtic have failed to progress beyond the play-off stage in the last two seasons is irrelevant. Beating NK Maribor of Slovenia and Malmo of Sweden were far easier propositions for them than overcoming Bayer Leverkusen of Germany or Valencia of Spain would have been.
Yet, the suggestion – made by Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the former German internationalist who is the Bayern Munich chief executive and ECA chairman, in an interview with a newspaper in his homeland - is that the “access route” should be re-examined.
“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 added.
The ECA is an organisation which comprises 220 clubs from 53 associations. Aberdeen, Celtic, Hearts, Motherwell and Rangers are among them. But its agenda has very much driven by nine of its largest members – Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Internazionale, Liverpool, Manchester United, Milan and Real Madrid.
The fact that Milan, seven time winners, haven’t been involved in the Champions League in the last two seasons while BATE Borisov, the Belarusian champions, have been hasn’t gone down at all well with its key players. There are, despite the eye-watering sums of money it generates, concerns the full commercial potential of the competition isn’t being maximised in its current guise.
Speculation about a new breakaway league is concerning. But should such talk really be taken seriously? It is, after all, nothing new. Indeed, the exact same threat was made by the exact same individual speaking on behalf of the exact same organisation five years ago. And what happened on that occasion? Hee haw.
It is no coincidence Rummenigge has spoken out as the auction for the television rights to both the Champions League and Europa League edges nearer. The contracts run in three season cycles and this is only in the first term of the new agreements. They will expire at the end of the 2017/18 campaign.
However, the bidding will get under way long before then, probably early next year. UEFA will need to have their leading clubs contented and onside and the ECA is only too well aware of that. What better time for them, then, to highlight their unhappiness?
Identical chat in 2011 about the top clubs from England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, who were unhappy about the expanded international calendar and promises to provide insurance for players called up to play for their countries being reneged upon, launching their own super league amounted to nothing. The likelihood is that it will, when the major clubs have been placated, once again.
Still, Celtic, whose chief executive Peter Lawwell flew to Geneva last week to argue against a change to the qualifying system with his counterparts from other elite European clubs, are correct to be worried.
The “champions route” was introduced by Michel Platini, the then president of UEFA, back in 2009 so that more clubs which had actually won their domestic leagues would be involved in the group stages.
Dividing the qualifying rounds into two sections – one for champions and one for non-champions – has certainly had the impact which Platini hoped that it would. No fewer than 27 clubs have made their inaugural appearances in the competition since. That has undoubtedly been good for football.
But the Frenchman is currently fighting an eight-year ban from footballrelated activity for accepting a disloyal payment of £1.3 million back in 2011. The FIFA appeals panel will rule on his case today. It seems unlikely that, whatever the outcome, he will be in a position to fight for the retention of his innovation.
Having Celtic involved in the group stages of the Champions League has been good for the Parkhead club both financially – it is worth over £20m to them – and for their supporters who relish the chance to see their team in action against the likes of Barcelona, Juventus and Manchester United.
What is more, a competition which has become decidedly stale in recent times as the same clubs from the same countries vie for supremacy every single season is enhanced greatly the presence of the champions of Scotland and other lesser footballing nations.
Hopefully, common sense, not selfinterest, will once again prevail.
TOMORROW Nick Rodger