UEFA to Introduce New Competition in 2021

[HajdukSplit]

At today's UEFA Executive Committee meeting along with the news of reformatting the Nations League and decided the hosts of the next three Champions League finals, UEFA decided to introduce a third European competition staring in 2021 named the UEFA Europa Conference League (slips right off the tongue). The matches will take place on Thursday and will be simultaneously with the Europa League fixtures.

They haven't yet gone into detail who qualifies for this tournament or what the format is but the rumor is the Europa League will be reduced to 32 clubs while this new competition will have 32 clubs as well. The Conference League will be more focused on teams from outside the top leagues (for example England will only have one spot while it appears the lower ranked leagues will get more spots or at least more opportunities). The winner of the Conference League gets a Europa League spot next season and the team finishing 3rd in their EL group drops to the Conference league

Overall its not a surprise UEFA introduced this, though not sure how much interest there will be in this even though I'm not a football elitist, its just too many games going on at the same time

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[Albatros]

A terrible move aimed at keeping small teams out of the big competitions.

 

[Power Man]

Y tho

 

[Jersey Fresh]

"That'll show the poors to stop yapping!"

 

[Chimaera]

Good tournament for Arsenal.

 

[S E P H]

A terrible move aimed at keeping small teams out of the big competitions.

This tournament is aimed for all those scrub clubs in the CL that don't belong like Genk and Praha or whatever that Czech team is.

Good tournament for Arsenal.

This has Tottenham Hotspurs and Everton FC written all over it.

 

[Cassano]

its a bad idea. eventually we're going to see teams like Greece, Serbia, etc pushed out of the CL.

 

[robertmac43]

I hate this a lot.....

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

Well if y’all hate this as much as you say you do then the best thing is to not watch the games. Take example of that plastic made up tournament for Europe. Everyone seemed to hate but yet some still watched the games. It’s pointless tbh

 

[Cassano]

Well if y’all hate this as much as you say you do then the best thing is to not watch the games. Take example of that plastic made up tournament for Europe. Everyone seemed to hate but yet some still watched the games. It’s pointless tbh

I don't mainly of 9-5 lol

 

[Corto]

TBH, I'd rather have the Cup Winners' Cup back.

This seems very... Unattractive IMO. Like Intertoto but during the season.

 

[Albatros]

Well if y’all hate this as much as you say you do then the best thing is to not watch the games. Take example of that plastic made up tournament for Europe. Everyone seemed to hate but yet some still watched the games. It’s pointless tbh

The difference is that the Nations League didn't exclude anyone from other competitions, on the contrary it provided an additional qualification path however gimmicky. Personally I still don't like it but it doesn't really damage European football. This does.

 

[alko]

It could help the teams from lower leagues. In financial terms.

 

[hatterson]

I’d think the clear next step for UEFA is to reform the CL and Europa a bit. Use this competition as an excuse to limit the chances lower leagues have to get into those competitions directly and then give more spots to England, Spain, Germany, etc.

 

[HajdukSplit]

The rumor is they will "regionalize" this competition (actually Ceferin said it in an interview with the Slovenian press though he hinted this is not yet official) until the knockout rounds. I don't know if they still do it but I remember in the past UEFA used to regionalize the early Europa League qualifiers to avoid travel costs for these small clubs

Here is how things should shape up starting in 2021 (PDF-file): https://kassiesa.net/uefa/files/2021-24-uefa-access-list.pdf

Champions League format essentially stays the same; the Europa League is essentially limited to the top 15 leagues + domestic champions who don't make the CL while the "EL2" is basically for leagues from 16-54 while the top leagues only get one spot.

 

[Blender]

As long as they don't take Europa League spots away from the leagues that currently have them, and this is truly aimed at adding more continental football for smaller leagues, I'm fine with it. If they start booting leagues out of the Europa League down to this new league, that's bullshit.

 

[bluesfan94]

As long as they don't take Europa League spots away from the leagues that currently have them, and this is truly aimed at adding more continental football for smaller leagues, I'm fine with it. If they start booting leagues out of the Europa League down to this new league, that's bull****.

Yeah this has the potential to be a good thing.