Europa League under scrutiny
Posted on | May 21, 2009 | No Comments
The UEFA Cup slipped quietly into history on Wednesday night just as Jadson’s extra-time goal slipped excruciatingly through the fingers of Werder Bremen ‘keeper Tim Wiese to make it 2-1 to Shaktar.
It was a slightly-low key final curtain for a cup competition which produced so many thrills and shocks over the years. Not a whimper, but definitely not the bang fans of the ‘UEFA wine jug’ might have hoped for.
Shaktar Donetsk’s victory marked the latest in a number of competition casualties and overhauls announced by football’s ruling bodies. The Cup Winners Cup was ditched completely by UEFA in 1999 and the UEFA cup had undergone some damaging changes before it was ovehauled again this week, most notably the decision to allow clubs finishing third in their Champions League groups to drop into it.
Change was inevitable
It’s probably true that something had to be done to the UEFA cup given the contempt shown to it by some clubs this season. Most notably, English Premier League side Aston Villa decided their run in the competition was not as important as their battle for a fourth-placed finish in the domestic table. Manager Martin O’Neil fielded a weakened side away in their second leg game with CSKA Moscow in February and went down 2-0, 3-1 on aggregate.
Villa’s reward for this snub was what now looks like a sixth place finish and a berth in the all-new ‘Europa League’ next season.
So what does this new competition, which sounds like the name of a gay nightclub in Brussels, actually involve?
The two main changes are to the group stage and qualification. There will now be 12 groups of four teams, home and away, rather than eight groups of five in a single round robin. That means – that’s right, more games.
Bigger, but not better
Qualification changes mean associations who have a rank of seven to nine in the UEFA coefficients get to enter their cup winner plus three other sides, while everyone else sends a cup winner and two teams. There’s also plenty of room been made for Champions’ League dropouts.
Again, it means more games, and more protection for Champions League clubs. In short they’ve made it bigger, but not better, which could backfire on the idea of it making more television money if fans continue to stay away from the earlier games, as they have been doing in England and elsewhere.
This was UEFA’s chance to re-invigorate a fading competition. Again they blew it and made it the snotty-nosed, bullied little brother of the Champions’ League.
Chris Breese
[Photo: Mark Wilson CC]
Tags: champions league > Europa League > Shaktar Donestsk > Uefa > Werder Bremen
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