Comments for Europe's champions play off at http://www.wsc.co.uk , comment 0 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.wsc.co.uk Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:35:42 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/3803/38/#pc_838 Broadening the number of countries involved in the group stages is certainly a good start, and both Anorthosis and BATE did enough last year to suggest that there won't be any hammerings. Ideally, I'd rather the '94 to '98 group stages where at least it was guaranteed that every team was a champion, but while that's a non-runner, there should be a limit of three teams from England, Spain and Italy and two from Germany and France, so that both the Europa League would be strengthened and the smaller leagues would have a more level playing field. - irishreddevil Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:55:03 +0100 http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/3803/38/#pc_837 Nice to see Arthur Scargill getting a mention. - The Exploding Vole Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:10:23 +0100 http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/3803/38/#pc_835 Yes, good piece. I would add, though, that the Europa League was an opportunity to radically transform the catering to big clubs. That is, allowing 3rd place CL teams to drop into the UEFA Cup was a way to allow richer clubs to get even richer because those teams got to continue on in Europe. Maintaining this in the Europa League just does the same thing. I do not fully understand the co-efficient system but at the end of the day, this system awards countries for their team's victories in competitive continental fixtures. So the longer Werder Bremen plays (dropping from the CL and making it to the UEFA Cup final) just strengthens Germany's opportunities in Europe vis-a-vis more slots. Now I know that Germany has been weakened in Europe so the example isn't the best, but I hope you get the general point: CL teams should be done once they are knocked out and Europa League teams should play each other all the way through. Platini had an opportunity to truly reform the competition but ultimately it is just renamed with the same new steps that exist in the CL. - danielmak Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:58:17 +0100 http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/3803/38/#pc_832 Yes, I agree wholly with the article too. It's good to see Platini having a go at reforming the competition though this is probably about as radical as it will get given the influence of the Gwhatevernumberitisnowofclubslookingsolelyaftertheirownselfishinterests. Contrary to the views of the English press, I quite respect Platini and his vision as UEFA president. He's quite fairly criticised the domination of UEFA's number one competition by a small number of teams from the league that is the richest and questioned the sustainability of clubs operating on massive debts, most of which happen to be the Premier League clubs.It's only 5 years ago we had a Monaco-Porto final with the semi-finalists being Deportivo La Coruna alongside Chelsea. Perhaps it could happen again... - t.j.vickerman Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:37:50 +0100 http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/3803/38/#pc_830 Nice piece. One of the attractions of European football used to be the unknown, good to know a bit of that might be coming back. - AMMS Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:30:45 +0100