Biggs
Administrator
Staff member
✅ Evergreen
🎫 S.T. Donor 🎫
✨Pasoti Donor✨
🌟Sparksy Mural🌟
Football dies a bit more, this absolutely stinks :thumbdown:
FA's executive committee are expected to approve a reform to the Champions League next Wednesday.
The new format will follow the 'Swiss model' and see the competition expanded to 36 teams.
The Athletic understands there is to be an increase from six to 10 guaranteed games in the new format, which will be introduced post-2024.
What is the Swiss model?
It is a new format for the Champions League after this current cycle of the competition, which ends in 2024.
The 32-team group stage would be eliminated. Instead, there would be a 36-team ‘Swiss model’ league, in which each club will play 10 games: five at home, five away.
The fixtures will be based on seedings and the teams will be ranked from one to 36.
The top eight will advance automatically to a 16-team knockout round, and the next 16 teams will go into a play-off round to decide those final eight slots.
Who would the extra four places go to?
The UEFA proposal is to give one of the four new slots to the team that finishes fourth in the fifth-strongest league, which is currently France but Portugal is closing in.
That would mean the 'Big Five' leagues would all have four guaranteed places in the Champions League each.
European football's governing body is proposing to award the three other slots on the basis of historic performance in European competitions over the previous five seasons. This would provide a safety net for teams with strong European pedigrees that have relatively poor domestic seasons.
For example, one or more of the Premier League's 'Big Six' could finish in one of the Europa or Europa Conference League positions — fifth to seventh — and be promoted to the Champions League..