Uefa plans third European club competition from 2021

[thepundit]

I thought it was a great idea to have a third tier tournament.

But now the qualification process has been revealed I suspect Rangers may be competing in the Conference more often than not and the money’ll be shit.

[the jambo-rocker]

I would not have as much of a problem if it was still 48 teams into the Europa League, but they've cut that down to just 32 meaning there will only be 16 extra places which will all benefit countries in the top 15 as they'll get I'm assuming by that structure a safety net from the Europa League as well as the champions league.

The whole point of this third competition should have been to give all these countries outside the top 15 a fair crack of the whip and instead carted them all into a competition with what will probably be even less prize money. This might be fine for the winners of some of these below 15 ranking winners but we've seen how unbalanced that looks to teams who keep winning their leagues all the time.

[sjc]

On 13/09/2018 at 04:07, Willie adie said:

how about we have the chamions compete in the European champions cup.

then a cup for the winners of the domestic knock out cup and they could call it the , cup winners cup.

finally a competition for the clubs top 4 or 5 in thier league and could call it the UEFA cup.

would it catch on?

The problem with this is that the old  UEFA Cup had more "glamour" ties due to there being more English/Spanish/German/Italian clubs involved.....which brought about the current UCL format with the help of TV money.

IMO make it:

Champions - UCL

League Runners up - UEL

Cup winners - ECWC

It'll never happen though.

[TavTastic]

1 hour ago, thepundit said:

I thought it was a great idea to have a third tier tournament.

But now the qualification process has been revealed I suspect Rangers may be competing in the Conference more often than not and the money’ll be shit.

We can get to 15th and get that extra CL/Euro place imo. Good for Scottish football but a horrendous name.

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 hours ago, thepundit said:

I thought it was a great idea to have a third tier tournament.

But now the qualification process has been revealed I suspect Rangers may be competing in the Conference more often than not and the money’ll be shit.

That's persuaded me it's a good idea.

[bennett]

Aberdeen have condemned Scottish sides to this, cheers sheep.

 

[HibeeJibee]

Scotland won't have any slots in the Europa League at all unless we reach 15th in rankings: all 3 clubs would be in the Conference (what a terrible name btw). Only difference is they'd start out at QR2 instead of QR1.


Our champion will still have to go though 4 qualifying rounds to reach Champions League group. In future 26 clubs will qualify directly to CL groups; 2 will qualify via runner-up path; while champions of every nation ranked 11th down will be playing for 4 slots.

Europa League groups will feature 22 clubs dropping down as a result of elimination in CL qualifiers; and 10 clubs progressing from qualifiers... although out of 28 clubs in these qualifiers only 9 will not have themselves dropped down from CL: those 9 will be drawn 1 each from nations ranked 7th-15th. Put simply the Europa League is becoming almost Champions League Consolation Cup.

Conference groups will feature 10 clubs dropping down as a result of elimination in EL qualifiers; 5 from a pathway exclusively for eliminated CL / EL clubs; and 17 clubs progressing from qualifiers. However there are actually 3 clubs from EL qualifiers dropping down into that pathway, and 25 clubs from top 15 nations - it's quite possible few clubs from small nations will be among the 17.


In each tournament the third-place groupstage finishers from the level above will playoff with the groupstage runners-up for place in the Last 16. So potentially only 8 clubs in Conference will reach the Conference Last 16.


It is good for Celtic as they are virtually guaranteed groupstage football whatever happens. If we could reach 15th we would get another CL slot (albeit they'll have to traverse 3 qualifying rounds to reach groups) so Rangers would have an enhanced likelihood of featuring in groupstage whether EL or Conference. Everyone else has almost no chance, and that's in this new "Conference".

Edited September 25, 2019 by HibeeJibee

[TavTastic]

13 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

Everyone else has almost no chance, and that's in this new "Conference".

If the bigger sides in our league like Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts can't even make the Conference groups most years then they should just chuck European football all together.

[realmadrid]

2 hours ago, TavTastic said:

If the bigger sides in our league like Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts can't even make the Conference groups most years then they should just chuck European football all together.

Did you read the above, there are just 17 places for the whole of Europe in the qualifying path our team will have to come in via 3 ties against potentially a team from any of the top leagues in the later rounds. 

https://kassiesa.net/uefa/files/2021-24-uefa-access-list.pdf

If it goes via seeding those places in the main will also be taken by top 15 league teams so all this does is give the champions of the smaller nations group stage football and not what I remember fans of Aberdeen and Hearts were hoping for around 1 year ago when the details first came out. 

[TavTastic]

1 hour ago, realmadrid said:

Did you read the above, there are just 17 places for the whole of Europe in the qualifying path our team will have to come in via 3 ties against potentially a team from any of the top leagues in the later rounds. 

https://kassiesa.net/uefa/files/2021-24-uefa-access-list.pdf

If it goes via seeding those places in the main will also be taken by top 15 league teams so all this does is give the champions of the smaller nations group stage football and not what I remember fans of Aberdeen and Hearts were hoping for around 1 year ago when the details first came out. 

If we can get to 15th for this year of it, which is very possible, then are 3rd placed qualifying team will only have to win one tie to get group stage football.

[realmadrid]

1 hour ago, TavTastic said:

If we can get to 15th for this year of it, which is very possible, then are 3rd placed qualifying team will only have to win one tie to get group stage football.

And if we do not get 15th this year this new set up will make it difficult to do so in the following 3 years before the eye of the needle is made even smaller in the next cycle.

[HibeeJibee]

Even if we did reach 15th... would our additional team(s) accrue enough points in their additional matches against top opposition to sustain 15th? Dubious.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

On 25/09/2019 at 17:32, bennett said:

Aberdeen have condemned Rangers * to this, cheers sheep.

 

Nae bother m8.

Any time.

[FairWeatherFan]

This year 3rd best qualifier had to go through 4x Qualifying rounds for one of the 13 spots through the main path. By the sounds of this it'll be 3x Qualifying Rounds with 17 spots. The Play-off round for the Europa League already has the likes of Eintracht Frankfurt, PSV, Torino, Wolves, Feyenoord, Braga, Espanyol, AEK Athens and others in it.

Not entirely sure it makes much difference from our point of view. I'm more concerned that the Europa League will get more bonus points and prize money than the Conference.

[thepundit]

On 25/09/2019 at 17:00, TavTastic said:

We can get to 15th and get that extra CL/Euro place imo. Good for Scottish football but a horrendous name.

But then our points start getting divided by five instead of four and that extra team who qualifies for Europe will inevitably lose in the first round every season.

Its hard enough for Rangers to carry 3 teams in Europe as it is.  

[TavTastic]

1 hour ago, thepundit said:

But then our points start getting divided by five instead of four and that extra team who qualifies for Europe will inevitably lose in the first round every season.

Its hard enough for Rangers to carry 3 teams in Europe as it is.  

3 teams in a group stage would easily make up for the greater number of total points Scottish clubs would need to get imo.

[Ginaro]

19 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

Scotland won't have any slots in the Europa League at all unless we reach 15th in rankings: all 3 clubs would be in the Conference (what a terrible name btw). Only difference is they'd start out at QR2 instead of QR1.

It is good for Celtic as they are virtually guaranteed groupstage football whatever happens. If we could reach 15th we would get another CL slot (albeit they'll have to traverse 3 qualifying rounds to reach groups) so Rangers would have an enhanced likelihood of featuring in groupstage whether EL or Conference. Everyone else has almost no chance, and that's in this new "Conference".

We may have a EL slot if we get to 16th this season, with the access list reshuffling due to the CL/EL winners also qualifying via their domestic league.

By 2021-22 Rangers will surely have a club coefficient high enough to mean they are seeded in every Conference qualifying round. The third and fourth clubs should also be seeded in the Conference QR2.

8 minutes ago, thepundit said:

But then our points start getting divided by five instead of four and that extra team who qualifies for Europe will inevitably lose in the first round every season.

Its hard enough for Rangers to carry 3 teams in Europe as it is.  

Maybe, but 15th means the 2nd placed team will get three chances at group stage football, and the 3rd place team gets two chances - if they lose in EL QR3 then drop into the Conference play-off.

[Marten]

On 25/09/2019 at 16:03, the jambo-rocker said:

I would not have as much of a problem if it was still 48 teams into the Europa League, but they've cut that down to just 32 meaning there will only be 16 extra places which will all benefit countries in the top 15 as they'll get I'm assuming by that structure a safety net from the Europa League as well as the champions league.

The whole point of this third competition should have been to give all these countries outside the top 15 a fair crack of the whip and instead carted them all into a competition with what will probably be even less prize money. This might be fine for the winners of some of these below 15 ranking winners but we've seen how unbalanced that looks to teams who keep winning their leagues all the time.

Agreed, if it would be a competition in addition to what there is already, but then just for clubs from small countries (say outside the top 10) it could be quite interesting, especially if the winners get an automatic EL group stage spot for the next season. Also, just make it all knock-out and it can be a good competition.

This is just pandering to the big guns again...

[Guest DAVIDB69]

Once the Europa league becomes more of a champions league 2 and the prize money increases , the tiredness line will miraculously disappear

[Pie Of The Month]

https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaconferenceleague/news/0264-10fe90612aa3-37b2bc77f89e-1000--europa-conference-league-lowdown/?iv=true

 

First final venue announced as Albania's new national stadium in Tirana and games to be played on Thursdays with 5.45pm and 8pm kick offs. Based on the capacity of 21k it looks like it'll be a chance for smaller nations to host finals like they've done with the super cup recently.

Also I didn't realise until I read in the link above there'll be a knockout round in the Europa League for the 2nd place teams and 3rd placed CL group teams in order to join the Europa League group winners in the last 16.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Pie Of The Month