Premier League clubs including Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea are today engaging in debate over some extreme Champions League plans.
Whilst the potential changes are not being planned until the 2024/25 season, the ramifications of these alterations could be substantial.
The club’s will assemble at a shareholders meeting today to debate the pros and cons of a dramatic increase in the amount of Champions League group matches.
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Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea had to contend with just six group matches this season before making it through to the knockout stages.
But Juventus are one of the key clubs aiming to completely change the group stages of the Champions League. Juventus’ chairman Andrea Agnelli is also an Executive Member of the European Football Association.
The radical plans include altering the group stages from eight groups of four teams to four groups of eight teams. This would mean 14 group matches for sides before the top four from each group go on to the last 16.
It’s also said that the domestic top-four qualification process for the Champions League could be abandoned in favour of something more of a closed shop which would serve the most historically successful clubs across Europe.
That would be terrible news for teams like West Ham United, whose potential route to the Champions League could be somewhat blocked, leaving sides like Arsenal and Chelsea favoured year in year out.
All of these issues will be on the table to discuss at today’s shareholders meeting.
The proposed start date for the expanded competition is the 2024/25 season and it’s believed Premier League clubs have serious reservations about how the extra fixtures would be worked into the football calendar.
It’s understood that one of the domestic cup competitions could be under threat as a result.
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