Bianchi on Ice wrote:Its a shame that a competition that used to be a good one has now become shit under the shoe. I can see a return to the old two leg knockout format and binning of the group stage. Maybe increase prize money or put both finalists into the next seasons CL. Something has to change, the competition is bloated.
I'd like two parallel competitions, with 96 clubs in, and no qualifiers (which would massively upset the bookies' lobby and therefore never work, I know). The group stages can start slightly earlier to compensate.
'Champions' route - 32 clubs in similar format to CL as it is now. Top 2 in each group go through to CL, bottom 2 to EL.
'Europa' route - 64 clubs in 16 groups of 4. 1st in each group goes to CL, 2nd to EL.
Last 32 for both competitions is 2-legged knock-out.
Each country has at least 1 team in the competition(s) (54 places), with the other 42 places divvied up between the top-ranked leagues.
Member associations have the choice between giving their European berth to the League Champions, or holding a play-off between League and Cup winners for the place.
This would allow more opportunity for 'giant-killing', more countries to be represented in the competition, offset domestic hegemony by clubs, as the six-game in-season drain on resources would allow other clubs to compete, make smaller leagues more appealing to youths who have not made the grade at big clubs, due to an opportunity for exposure in the European game and therefore a chance to re-launch their careers, bring greater amounts of fans (and therefore money) to cities with teams competing, and make the competitions more interesting overall.