UEFA have confirmed that discussions will be held on Monday over the future of the Champions League.
The format of the competition is set to be changed from 2024 onward, with a radical overhaul of the group stage.
While UEFA has managed to stave off the threat of a Super League, an expanded competition looks certain.
The traditional group stage will be thrown out and replaced with a league format based on a so-called ‘Swiss system’ used in chess. The model is used for tournaments in which there are too many entrants to realistically all play each other, but no desire to shrink the tournament.
Under the scheme 36 teams qualify for the group stage of the competition, with two ‘wildcard’ places reserved for the non-qualified teams with the best coefficient record over the previous five seasons. For example, were Juventus and Liverpool to miss out this season they’d likely be granted a reprieve as one of the wildcard entrants.
After that, the coefficient is used to rank all the clubs from one to 36. Based on that, the teams are given five home games and five away games against 10 different opponents. After 10 games the top eight teams in the league go through to the last 16, while the next 16 teams go into a play-off round to determine who makes up the rest of the first knockout round.
Rangers and Celtic will be watching on with keen interest, with the Scottish coefficient rising.
Next season's champions could be set to earn an automatic group stage place for 2022-32, before the sweeping changes come in.
UEFA will discuss the plans at its executive committee meeting on Monday April 19, with the plans expected to be given the green light.
If approved the plans will mean more group games, but there will not be the closed shop that was feared.
