FANS of the Champions League are only just realising that after this week’s round of fixtures the competition will never look the same again.
That’s because starting from next season, there will be no group stage in the competition.
A change in the Champions League’s format will see it expand from 32 to 36 teams next season.
And that’s because Uefa bigwigs approved to change the format to a “Swiss league”.
That will mean that the competition’s group stage will be replaced by a 36 team league with teams playing eight times rather than the current six.
These eight games will be played against eight different teams.
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The games will be against seeded opposition and not at random, with a focus being on creating a balanced and fair fixture list for clubs in the competition.
The top eight from the final league table will progress to the knockout stage automatically.
They will then be joined by the eight winners of the play-offs between sides placed ninth to 24th in the table.
The bottom eight teams will then be knocked out of the competition.
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The expansion of the competition means in theory the Premier League’s top five teams could all qualify for next season’s Champions League.
Currently, four teams can qualify for the Champions League but five clubs will qualify next season if English teams perform well in Europe.
With Manchester City winning the Champions League and West Ham winning the Europa Conference, England would have had five places in this season’s Champions League if the system was implemented last year.
In fact, in five of the past six seasons – or seven of the last 11 – England would have been handed an extra spot for being among the best two performing nations.
But things are looking less secure this year.
The Premier League needs as many teams as possible to go deep in Europe and Manchester United and Newcastle are both on the brink of crashing out of the Champions League.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
