| Ka-pi96 said: Give it a few more years and there won't even be qualifiers. It will just be 8 teams from England, Spain, Italy and Germany and the rest will just be left out in the cold. That's the route UEFA seems intent on going. |
I fully expect something like that to happen within the decade. Top 2 leagues (Spain & England) gets 6 spots each, 3rd and 4th leagues (Italy and Germany) 5 spots each, 5th league (France) 4 spots, 6th league (Russia) 2 spots, 7th and 8th leagues (Portugal and Ukraine) 1 spot each and then Champions League and Europa League winners get a spot, with those spots moving to the 9th and 10th league if the CL and EL winners also qualified through their domestic leagues. Complete removal of the qualifiers, and the Europa League gets expanded to 64 teams with 3rd place teams from the CL Group Stages no longer going to the EL knock-out fase or there's a brand new 3rd international competition.
Another option which also wouldn't surprise me is the Champions League's format totally changing. 16 best teams in the world Europe get an automatic place in the knock-out stages which now contains 32 teams, with the other 16 teams qualifying the regular way like it is right now.
Last edited by poklane - on 28 February 2018
