Follow Europa's Lead

It's a bit like George Osbourne spreading the wealth, it's just not going to happen!

I think the league qualification process is the most fair, because it rewards teams for their progress across a season. What would happen to league football if first and second only mattered for CL qualification? We'd get better cup football for sure, but the lifeblood of the top flight: the league, would suffer as a result.

Who would get Europa League? We'd be in a position, under this scenario, where a cup final could determine CL places and Europa League places for teams not necessarily involved in that final.

Football's not fair, but giving CL places to domestic cup winners would ruin the league. We'd go from resting players against Swansea in the cup, to resting players in the league, because the cup matches are now more important.

If we want to make the cup games more attractive then divert additional prize money to the competitions, especially the Capital One Cup. Again though, it would not change things. The biggest teams with the biggest squads are best equipped to challenge on all fronts, and giving them a reason to put out better teams in the Capital One Cup will simply give less of a chance to the rest.

I fear though that if this did happen, all it would mean is the bigger clubs would take more of an interest in both domestic cups, and through amazing coincidences, they’d keep apart from each other until the semi-finals (which would be a shot in the arm for the dwindling TV audiences and sponsor cash).

As for it not helping England's national teams chances of success, all I can say is what success is that?

All the aforementioned players signed for their clubs with hearts full of the purest altruism, and their professional pride piqued by the thought of pushing underperforming clubs to the Premier League pinnacle? Their pockets be damned?

Ravenelli, for example, rejected Everton after previously signing for 'Boro, not because Howard's breath stunk of Bacardi a bit too early that morning or because he bought into 'Pop' Robson's project. Nope. It was simply because they were prepared to stuff a shitload of fazoos into fat Luca Brazi's (massive mammoth sized) waistband, and Everton subsequently failed to measure up.

The main criteria in a player making a move is the amount of cash a club is prepared to cough up. Always has been, always will be. Look at Man Utd, no European football on offer at all, no chance of challenging for the Premier League this season, yet still able to recruit world class players of pedigree like Di Maria and Falcao in the summer, simply because they were still able to wave an astronomical wad in their agents' faces.

For sure if the allocation for English clubs was to drop to 3, it would weaken the price of the TV rights, and UEFA wouldn't want that at all.

Football has changed. Top 4 is the big one these days...... with no farcical play-off for 4th place thank you very much. Yes, it heavily favours the money boys but that's what makes it so exciting for a club like Everton.

The value of the cup would mean it being taking seriously by every club. It would be our best chance of making some money. I recall listening to the draw on Monday at lunchtime knowing that the season might hinge on it. I find the Champions League without personal involvement as dull as ditch water. Let's have a cup that counts.

If it's more important to be in it again next year than to win it, you can see something's wrong. Can you imagine the equivalent situation in the FA cup? No. It's absurd. Unfortunately I can't see it changing. Nice if it would. Would our board even vote for it?

Spot on.
Same old teams every year winning the cups , So no trophies at all for the rest.

I am with you Nick that something needs to be done to break the glass ceiling. Something also has to be done with the draws too BVD vs. Arsenal every year it seems. AC Milan vs. Barca, City vs. Bayern and United always getting a cream puff draw when they're in it.

Put it this way: if you're in a cycle race and the top 4 of each race can put an engine on their bike, who's going to finish top 4 in the next race? It is not coincidence that 52 out of 54 top 4 places have gone to the same teams.

And on the hypothetical reduction to three teams, is that really a concern? Is that tournament so much a concern that we should protect the dominance of five teams and not our domestic game that has lost its soul and the league title is a shut-out?

If you want to give greater prize money to the cups to make them important, the only way is to have that money come from the CL.

John, yes Ravanelli took the cash, and that has to be factored into practically every transfer going, but it remained they had to help a team succeed to get a prize. Today, those players wouldn't come to those clubs because they're non-CL, and its because of the CL that these teams can't compete on wages.

Would the cups always go to the big teams? If people are offering that as reason to not change anything, then isn't it admitting defeat?

Without guaranteed CL and FFP rules hitting, a level of parity can be restored to football whereas the CL is just a golden goose for five teams who have taken competition out of the game.

Isn't that what happens now? ... and most don't take it seriously anyway.

I've been saying for years (ever since the Bosman ruling) football is heading for a cataclysmic collapse similar to the crash of 1929. The game is rotten to the core, it is top heavy, ruled by corrupt men in Switzerland who's shortsightedness is akin to that of Neville Chamberlain's in 1938.

The game is run by a criminal gang similar to to the American mafia and its five families. They aren't interested in reform or spreading the wealth. They want to keep power and power alone.

As for corrupt governing bodies, what has the FA got on Uefa whereby Wembley got two CL finals in a row and now two semis and the final in the Euros 2020? Something is going on, I'm sure...

Former powerhouses like Everton, Aston Villa, Wolves, Leeds Utd, Sheffield Wed even Spurs don't have a chance to break into this exclusive club unless some billionaire comes along which with FFP makes it increasingly unlikely.

I love football but I hate all the sordid baggage attached to the modern game.

I'd go further and get rid of all this group nonsense in the European cups, but then football these days is about overloaded manufactured excitement, rather than the real thing.

As a return to that isn't going to happen, I'd prefer to see one large European knock out tournament. 7 English teams would go into the hat. All games unseeded and excitement throughout. Plus, the 'smaller' nations' champions not pissed on and demoted to no more than a Europa preliminary.

That's midweek European football I would watch. Well actually I wouldn't as CL is on BT next year.

At least in our own small way watching games via links on t'internet is two fingers up to the powers that be. Take that governing bodies! Oh what, you're too busy setting the time on your 㾼,000 watches? Fair enough.