CONCACAF Champions League to include VAR in 2021 and will expand in 2023
The president of CONCACAF Victor Montagliani was interviewed by TSN reporter Kristian Jack to talk about the plans he has for the Champions League in the near future.
Tigres UANL defeated Los Angeles FC 2-1 in the CONCACAF Champions League on Tuesday night to win their first title in the team's history and book a spot in the 2021 FIFA Club World Cup that is set to start on 1 February. The tournament was paused in late-March due to the coronavirus pandemic and resumed on 16 December in what was a successful event according to the president Victor Montagliani.
The plans to grow the Concachampions
Montagliani was interviewed by TSN reporter Kristian Jack on Tuesday and he talked about the plans he wants to implement in the near future, such as: The inclusion of the VAR in next years’ tournament and the expansion of teams for the 2023 CONCACAF Champions League.
“We have an opportunity to actually get it right and get it correct, learning from others and also emphasizing how big these rivalries are, whether it’s a Canadian club versus an MLS club, MLS versus Liga MX, Honduran versus MLS. These are rivalries that I think just are dying to explode in our region, and I think the Champions League is where you’re going to get that,” he said.
Currently the CCL has 16 teams from across North America, Central America and the Caribbean in a knockout round. The idea behind including more clubs is to increase the competition amongst them, since Liga MX teams have dominated the tournament since the format changed in 2008.
“We traditionally have not done well at the Club World Cup and it’s because, I think it’s a cultural issue,” Montagliani said. “We had historically put more emphasis on a domestic cup rather than international football and I don’t know if that was because of fear or lack of knowledge or both. But now you can see the attitude that the MLS clubs now have coming into our Champions League is significantly different just in the last three years. Even with the Mexican teams, Tigres are so hungry for this because this is going to be their fourth final.”
Also Montagliani confirmed that the VAR will be used from now on in the Concachampions after the referee didn't call a penalty against Latif Blessing in the final match between LAFC and Tigres on Tuesday night. He said that the reason why there was no VAR in the 2020 CONCACAF Champions League was because in the beginning of the tournament they didn't implement it and it was not fair to use it in the elimination rounds played in December.