During the closest seasons, changes can shake up the UEFA Champions League.
As "The Times" wrote, the president of the European football organization Aleksandras Čeferinas proposed several new ideas on how to change the tournament format.
UEFA is considering giving guaranteed spots in the league to the strongest eight teams, i.e. to teams that reached the quarterfinals in the previous season.
According to the leader, this is meant to protect weaker clubs.
"We would like to give assurances to teams like this year's 'Ajax' or previously 'Monaco' and 'Leicester City',"
This year, the Amsterdam team reached the semi-finals, but now they have to sell their stars because they don't know if they will compete in the tournament next season.
I don't think this is how many clubs should be protected, as the league would become too closed. One idea is to give spots to teams that reached a certain stage of the tournament.
We will discuss this further on September 11, discussing with league and team representatives," clarified A.Čeferinas.
Another idea is to replace the current eight groups with four groups of eight teams each. This idea is strongly supported by the European Clubs Association.
Finally, there is also talk of the possibility of increasing the number of teams playing in the group stage to 40 or even 48.
However, A.Čeferinas rejected the idea of a Super League: "It will not be established as long as I am here."
Among other UEFA plans, there is also mention of the possibility of organizing and determining the champion of Champions by national teams - in an exclusive match, the champions of Europe in 2020 would face the winners of the 2019 'Copa America'.
