Clubs like West Ham, Newcastle, Everton to be excluded from the Champions League


The Top 21 Champions League Teams to Qualify For Following Years Competition Making Premier League Finishing Position Irrelevant


The last time the major clubs talked about forming their own breakaway league, the European Cup was restructured to form the Champions League to guarantee them plenty of big European nights and to almost guarantee them entry into the competition.

With recent talk of a breakaway league again so the elite can just play the big money-spinning games, UEFA has had to look at restructuring the Champions League to try and appease them again.

Documents have been leaked and obtained by the New York Times that show how UEFA and the few elite clubs they have hatched a plan with, propose to restructure Europe's premier competition specifically for the elite clubs. The rest are to be left behind.

If you support Everton, Leicester City, West Ham United, Newcastle United and a host of clubs in their position, time is running out to secure Champions League football. If a club doesn't get in in 2024, then they may never get in so being in a financial position to do so is of paramount importance to a clubs future.

The New York Times has obtained documents that show only one proposal, as opposed to the smokescreen of several options that UEFA and the elite clubs suggest there are.

The plan is to give 28 places to major leagues and 4 to the other 55 national federations, starting in 2024.

The top 21 teams in the UEFA Champions League will automatically qualify for the competition the following year, making their domestic league finishing position totally irrelevant.

The Champions League will effectively become the breakaway European League. It is structured to ensure clubs inclusion.

The elite Spanish clubs and the Italians are pushing this proposal hard suggesting it gives them fiscal security. Of course, this proposal will just deepen the spending power of the elite, guaranteeing them more income than the remainder of their national league teams.

Football has long been all about money, those that have it win trophies, those that don't, don't, except in the rare circumstance. Perhaps Spurs fans can now understand why qualifying for the competition and being at the top table is so important. We have to do all we can to be an elite club, for our own future and for the chance of winning trophies in the future.

Spanish league president Javier Tebas is a vocal critic of the plans and he spoke to the New York Times after the meeting last week when these plans were presented to the national leagues.

“We cannot accept that these are just plans and proposals for an open discussion with stakeholders about the future of professional football. In reality, we were presented with a concrete project developed by UEFA in full cooperation with a small group of rich and powerful European clubs to reform European club competitions after 2024 in a format that could destroy domestic competitions and the sporting and financial sustainability of the vast majority of clubs in Europe.

"We are open for a constructive dialogue to reform European football together with other stakeholders, but if this is the project on the table, then the margins for negotiations are very limited.”

UEFA wants to see 4 groups of 8 teams, thus guaranteeing more money-spinning games. The top 4 in each group would then go through to the next stage.

Dutch teams, Portuguese, Belgian and Eastern European teams would have to play in a second-tier competition. The second division would have 32 teams and the third division 64 teams. There would be promotion and relegation, but the money in the top division would ensure that the financially bigger clubs would have an advantage over those from the second tier. Only 4 places each season would be available for promotion/relegation.

These plans would reduce the importance of domestic leagues and leave the smaller or even medium-sized clubs with little chance of breaking into the elite and competing.

This restructuring are for clubs with money and the corporate business that support them. Football has not been about the football fan since before the start of the Premier League. 

The proposal is to begin the new restructured UEFA Champions League in 2024. 

It would allow the elite clubs to concentrate on the Champions League and it's money and play a second XI in their domestic competitions. You would protect your star players, give them adequate rest and tailor team selection to providing the best team for European nights, anything else becomes secondary. Even winning the league would be pretty meaningless in terms of qualifying for Europe.

Bernard Caiazzo is the owner of the French team St.-Étienne and he has suggested investors are pulling out of potentially investing in clubs because of the uncertainty surrounding these proposals, as well as the potential impact they would have on fans.

“The objective of football is to give happiness to fans, and to give happiness is to have a chance of winning."

He suggested that investors would not want to invest when European competition was a closed shop, understandably so. What would be in it for them if success is unachievable and European competition almost impossible?

Champions-League-Qualification


We at Spurs have a chairman who has his finger on the pulse and is building the club so it has a future and is not reliant on the now illegal funding of owners, who under FFP cannot fund the purchase of players or their wages. 

Money is the reality of football, anything else is a fantasy. Everything is about increasing income to pay for the best to win trophies regularly and thus building the club to that end is the responsible course to take, anything else could condemn a club to a bleak future.

We have a stadium that is the envy of everyone, why, because it generated around £800,000 a game in catering, hospitality etc. The Sun reported that Manchester United are lucky if they received £150,000 a game.

Of course, they make their money through sponsorship deals, where the lead the way be a country mile in the Premier League.

It has been said often, the new stadium is a game changer for Spurs. Arsenal didn't generate that sort of income when they build theirs, they were not as forward-thinking as our chairman.

Daniel Levy deserves our praise for seeing where football was going and preparing this club to be at the top table. Only when the idiots who complain about him can see that will they realize how their view would send this club backward.

This is why I have no time for these people, they simply don't understand the realities of football today and the future, which any chairman must always have his eye upon.

COYS