The Agnellis and Florentinos butter up Ceferin
Later today, the cartel who are lobbying to replace the Champions League for something which they think is better, will be holding a secret meeting to discuss the idea. They are campaigning for a longer tournament, with four groups of eight teams, places guaranteed for the leaders of the scheme (Real Madrid and Barça, among others) and restricting access to the leagues with less economic power. Today they’ll be meeting with [UEFA president] Aleksander Ceferin, who has been converted into some sort of puppet for Andrea Agnelli who, in Florentino Pérez has found an ideal partner to push their project forward – one which they think will improve the Champions League – something which I have my doubts about. One thing it certainly will do though is have a negative effect on the level of all of the league competitions in Europe.
Classist Champions League
In the current set-up, teams qualify for the Champions League based on where they finish in their respective domestic leagues. The lobby group wants to replace that with a more exclusive tournament – a droit du seigneur boasting 24 clubs, who make the cut based on their previous achievements in Europe. Not so long ago UEFA, with a certain possibilist tack, began granting places in the competition to the bigger, more important clubs. From then we’ve seen a Champions League which always features various teams from the best leagues while clubs from lesser leagues pass through the filtering system of the preliminary rounds which leave many of them in the Europa League. What some are looking to do now is do away with the whole business of qualifying through the national league to make way for a group of aporophobes, who have self-appointed themselves with the blessing of the insipid Ceferin.
ECA affiliates like lambs to the slaughter
From what we’ve seen in the Champions League, I cannot for the life of me see how the classist Agnelli-Florentino proposal can improve the tournament as it is. And I understand even less why some other clubs have affiliated themselves with the European Club Association – Athletic Club, Sevilla, Villarreal, Real Sociedad, Málaga, Valencia and their equivalents in other countries when their role is nothing more than being useful idiots. They haven’t been called for this meeting – and they’ll be turned into mincemeat by those heading this project. Granted, they’re free to take whatever stance they like in the matter but to me, they appear like lambs going to the slaughter. In fact, I have more understanding with Ceferin, a pitiful figure who only aspires to keeping his cut in any deal.