• Team as low as seventh could be given chance to
qualify
• Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool object
Under the play-off proposal Fulham – who finished
seventh in 2009 – would have had a chance of Champions League
football.
The Premier League
is considering introducing a play-off system to determine
the fourth club to qualify for the following season's
European Champions
League.
Currently the club which finishes fourth goes through but the
new proposal would mean a play-off between the clubs finishing
fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh. The intention is to inject more
competition into a league in which qualification has for years
remained in the hands of the same four clubs.
Premier League sources have confirmed that the play-off proposal
was presented at the most recent meeting of all clubs, on 4
February, and the league's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, was
authorised to return with further details in April.
It is understood that the idea was enthusiastically supported by
all clubs – except the so-called big four of Chelsea, Manchester
United, Arsenal and Liverpool. Scudamore, and the league's
secretary, Mike Foster, will examine the practicalities of how a
play-off system could work: whether it should take the form of a
home-and-away knockout system, similar to that in the Football
League, or incorporate seeding. They will also look into when
matches could be fitted into a crowded fixture calendar before
making recommendations.
The idea was presented as part of the Premier League's strategic
review of its format and operations and springs from two particular
motivations. The first is to crack the problem of England's top
league becoming less open and competitive, with the richest clubs,
Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, having
strengthened their hold on the top four places over several years.
One league source said it was an odd twist that the idea has been
raised now, in a season when Liverpool's claim to the fourth place
is being seriously challenged.
The response among clubs outside the top four is understood to
have been positive, with some believing that a play-off system
would create more competitive matches and give more clubs a prize
to challenge for. Most clubs now feel they have no chance of
attaining fourth place but almost the whole Premier League could be
brought into a competition to finish seventh and make it to the
play-offs. The medium-sized clubs, which increasingly aspire to
break the cartel, are said to have been enthusiastic, seeing
play-offs as a great opportunity.
The big four, who have been qualifying on merit at the end of
each season and reaping the footballing and financial rewards of
Champions League participation are understood to have been less
keen. Self-interest is clearly a factor, with those clubs concerned
about protecting their own advantages. However, there is also a
feeling that the league should be more sophisticated about
addressing its major challenges, particularly the financial ones,
rather than incorpor-ating an awkward play-off system for a prize
as ostensibly moderate as fourth place.
The other motivation for the play-offs is a waning of the
proposal for an international round of matches, dubbed "Game 39",
which was widely criticised for lacking coherence and being
territorially expansionist. The play-offs would mean extra matches,
which would be sold to pay-television and so generate more money
for all clubs.
The consistent qualification of the same four clubs, widely seen
as stifling competition, is not replicated across Europe. The
Premier League largely blames the Uefa Champions League money,
distributed to participating clubs, for entrenching the big four's
financial power. Uefa, however, points out that Champions League
income represents a small part, 8–13%, of Manchester United's,
Chelsea's, Arsenal's and Liverpool's total turnover. Most of the
big clubs' money is made in this country; Premier League television
income is relatively evenly distributed but United, Chelsea and
Arsenal in particular make much more than their nearest rivals from
commercial activities and match-day revenues in the Premier
League.
The Dutch league tried a play-off system for the second
Champions League qualification place but abandoned it after the
2007-08 season, when FC Twente Enschede beat Ajax 2-1. The issues
in Holland were the risk of crowd trouble at such high-stakes
matches and a perception that the play-offs were one-sided.
In the Premier League there is some confidence that neither of
those would present major problems. As a means of encouraging
competition, opportunities and increasing income, the play-off
proposal already seems to have enough support to suggest it could
gain the necessary 14-6 majority to be implemented.