Fans across Europe speak out against Champions League expansion

Football supporters from across Europe have added to the growing concern over Champions League reforms, claiming proposed expansion will “cement the dominance of elite clubs in perpetuity”.

With just weeks to go before Uefa executives are expected to decide on their Horizon 24 proposals, which would add four more Champions League matchdays and allow clubs to qualify based on historic performance in Europe, there is a late attempt to push back against the changes by those who feel their voices have been ignored.

Among them are the people who, in non-pandemic times, fill the continent’s stadiums. On Thursday the umbrella body Football Supporters Europe published a 24-page manifesto critiquing Uefa’s current proposals and making recommendations to, it says , “ensure that clubs and communities from across the continent enjoy a fair share” of the game’s economic growth.

“Proposals to reform or replace Uefa club competitions by expanding the Uefa Champions League or establishing a breakaway super league are flawed,” the FSE argue in their ‘position paper’ on reform. “If realised, they will further undermine the … core principles of sporting merit.

“More specifically, the evidence suggests that adding more clubs and games to European competitions will increase inequality between and within domestic leagues, cement the dominance of elite clubs in perpetuity, and make for less entertaining football in the long run.”

Citing, among other voices, the Guardian’s legendary football correspondent Arthur Hopcraft, the FSE build together a picture of of how proposed changes have, over the years, reduced the centrality of supporters to the sport. It also makes a series of recommendations that would make the game “more European, more diverse, and more open”.

Among the commitments would be an acknowledgment of the “central importance of domestic competitions in the football pyramid” and “the contributions made by supporters to European football”.

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Recommended changes include preventing “further fragmentation of the matchday calendar”, a “more equitable distribution of revenue between participating clubs” in European competition and a “dramatic increase in solidarity payments to benefit non-participating clubs”.

“The process of devising such proposals should begin and end with consultation and cooperation between all stakeholders, including supporters, at both European and national levels,” the paper concludes. “In the end, dialogue presents the best chance to build a game that works for everybody.”

source: theguardian.com