UEFA president Alexander Ceferin believes new CL format will kill Super League, defends ticket allocation for final
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Published 11/05/2022 at 16:23 GMT
UEFA have faced down the European Super League threat and answered with a new Champions League format which has been adopted despite concerns it favours prominent countries. The governing body's president Alexander Ceferin has said that both the new format and the method to award Champions League final tickets are the correct approaches.
Ceferin reacts to Klopp criticism of CL final ticket allocation: 'it's the system that works
UEFA president Aleksandr Ceferin believes that the new Champions League format is ‘truly open’ and could kill any Super League proposals.
The new draw system starts for the 2024/25 season and was approved at a meeting in Vienna on Tuesday. An extra qualification spot will be given to the two countries with the best European club performances in the previous season.
The coefficient system will give four bonus points to a team which reaches the Champions League group phases, which benefits countries which are already entitled to four automatic qualification spots.
“It’s truly open, it’s as open as it can be,” Ceferin said on Wednesday at the end of Uefa Congress. “Whatever you do in football, somebody says you didn’t do it right. Even if you score, they say you should score with the other foot.
“Ninety nine point nine per cent of football fans know this is a completely open competition. It’s for more small and middle-sized countries and France, which is correct, gets one spot more.
“We are all happy and when you see national associations, clubs and leagues and fans being happy you should enjoy the moment, because it will not last.”
The Russian suggested that the new format will put proposals of a European Super League to bed for the foreseeable future, at latest two decades.
UEFA could still take action against Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus as they are yet to withdraw their support for their own proposals.
Ceferin also backed the current system to distribute tickets for the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool.
Liverpool’s boss Jurgen Klopp criticised the current method, which sees around half of the 75,000 tickets for the game at the Parc des Price to be given to sponsors and officials rather than fans.
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Jurgen Klopp
Image credit: Getty Images
"For us, not much will change if all tickets are 10 euros but it will change a lot for the clubs," said Ceferin of the high prices for the event.
"It's the system that works, and clubs couldn't function differently.
"I explained the same thing to one of the coaches of the two teams a couple of days ago and I can do it here.
"I explained it to him a bit more and took much more time because I went through every single number.
"From the revenues from the finals, Uefa gets 6.5% and 93.5% goes to the clubs. From the other matches, 100% of the revenues goes to the clubs.
"Fans of both teams get 20,000 tickets each. Sponsors that pay 100 or more million euros sponsorship - of which 93.5% goes to the same clubs - get some tickets. It's part of a contractual obligation that we have.
"Uefa doesn't get more tickets than the others. Some tickets go to the market, some tickets go to the fans and some go to the partners. It's not Uefa. I'm not giving tickets for free to my friends or selling to my friends."
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