tribalfooball.com - March 14, 2007
UEFA chief Michel Platini has outlined plans for a new era in
European football including a proposal for Champions League
qualifying play-offs.
Platini is proposing a new final
qualifying round where there could be play-off-style matches, where
the lowest-placed qualifiers from England, Spain, Italy, France,
Germany and Portugal would play against each other.
The current system works on seeding, meaning clubs from the major
leagues usually avoid each other in the final qualifying round and
have easier games against smaller teams.
Platini said: "It's not about disturbing England, Italy or Spain,
but about finding a good balance.
"My problem is that the two English, Spanish and Italian teams in
the final qualifying round do not play against each other, they
play against smaller teams.
"Perhaps the teams from the bigger countries, who have four and
three qualifying teams, should play against each
other.
"We want to add some of the other countries to the competition and
to do that we have take some of the others away. I'm not sure that
the fourth clubs from Spain, Italy and England are more important
than the champions of Poland, the Czech Republic and
Denmark."
Any changes to the format would not come into force until the
2009-10 season.
not a good proposal i guess top teams playing each other
