Leeds have savaged UEFA’s plan to expand the Champions League to 36 teams, claiming most top-flight clubs are opposed to the idea.
UEFA have proposed allowing four extra teams to compete from 2024 onwards, based on their previous record in Europe, which would favour the established bigger clubs.
Leeds voiced their opposition to the plan with 300 other clubs at the European Leagues Club Advisory Platform and CEO Angus Kinnear claims it is wrong on so many levels.
“After the insidious design of Project Big Picture to concentrate power in the hands of a few clubs at domestic level, we now face the same challenges on the European stage,” said Kinnear, writing in his programme notes for the Chelsea game on Saturday.
“UEFA’s plans to expand the competition with a doubling of matches is deeply concerning on a number of levels.
“I have a serious doubts over whether the increase in teams and games is actually what supporters want. It’s hard to believe that Spurs fans are clamouring for an away tie at Lokomotiv Plovdiv to be an annual fixture.
“The expansion will also cannibalise the value that we can generate from our domestic competition that the rest of Europe eye so enviously.
“But the element that the supporters of the majority of Premier League clubs should be most outraged by is the principle that qualification for Europe will no longer be only based on in-season merit, but on a coefficient of clubs’ historic performance in Europe.
“This is shamelessly engineered to perpetuate the inclusion of clubs who have long-term European success and whom UEFA deem will have greater commercial value at the expense of emerging clubs.
“For a game founded on the hopes and dreams of supporters this development means that European qualification will no longer be an even playing field for burgeoning clubs such as Everton, Aston Villa, West Ham and Leeds, who have realistic ambitions of a return to European football.
“Equally worrying is the consequence that if Liverpool can qualify ahead of West Ham even when finishing below them, the revenues from European football will be more concentrated within the hands of ‘the establishment’, which will be reinvested into their squads giving them a recurring competitive advantage at domestic level.
“Our concerns are shared by the majority of Premier League clubs and by a cross section of supporters.”
