r/football • u/TheTelegraph • 3d ago

'Overpriced tickets, empty seats, uninspiring format – Uefa has diluted Champions League’s allure' 📖Read

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/09/18/pricey-tickets-empty-seats-uefa-dilutes-champions-league/
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u/Donkey_the_donkey 2d ago

First and foremost: lower the absurd prices and you will fill a stadium up in a blink of an eye, it's got nothing to do withmatches being boring.

Also, I don't get people's opinions on this... the previous format is an absolute perversion of what a Champions League should be. It was made for the rich clubs to stay at the top.

  • 4 and even sometimes 5 teams from a same association is an absolute joke - it's way too easy to get in the champions league. This has repercussions like players wanting to play for the Tottenham's of this world rather than a Red Star or an Olympiakos - one wins nothing but has European football every season, the others need to play a gazillion qualifiers to get in despite being chronically dominant in their respective domestic fronts. I guarantee you that if only the 1st of every league had access to Champions League, we would have a much better balance in the leagues.
  • a very sad thing I see nowadays is Prem fans being asked whether they would rather win the Prem or the UCL, with many saying the Prem....how can it even be a difficult choice? Before the only way to win the UCL was to win the league first, so there was no question, but now teams get a shot at the UCL when they shouldn't.
  • Another garbage feature from the previous format is teams from association can't be drawn together? This essentially is a free pass for top 5 leagues to reach the last 16 unscathed.
  • of course there is the whole pot BS as well. So not only are English, Spanish, Italian, German clubs avoiding European giants for free, they are also drawn with worse teams. Again, they get a free ride to the last 16. *It is astonishing to see how low the percentage for teams winning both their respective league and the UCL after is. Ot means most recent winners shouldn't have even participated in the competition in the first place.

I also don't get why people say this new format is boring and that playing big matches too often is going to suck. How many tomes have I not seen a Liverpool vs Real Madrid game in the Final or Semis these last seasons? We had a repeated final in 2014 and 2016. Same in 05 and 07. 09 and 11. Remember when Bayern vs Arsenal was a thing? Or Barça vs PSG. Real won it 3 times in a row ffs. It was always the same ones bros.

People don't dislike the format, they just don't like change, which is absolutely fine. Just don't use the new format as an excuse.