A final decision will be made later this month
The proposed shake up to the format of the UEFA Champions League, that would see the tournament adopt a ‘Swiss style’ 10-game group stage, has been thrown into doubt, the Athletic are reporting.
Earlier reports had indicated that a meeting of UEFA’s executive committee was expected to oversee the approval of this change on Tuesday 30th March, but the decision has now been delayed until their next meeting on April 19 after a row over commercial rights.
While there has been disagreement in the wider football community over the proposed changes to the format, that is not the matter in question here. The disagreements focus on the way in which the competition’s commercial and broadcasting rights will be sold and distributed.
Europe’s top clubs and UEFA could not come to an agreement over who should own the commercial rights of the new version of the competition.
Manchester United’s executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and Manchester City CEO Ferran Soriano are two of the most notable backers of the new reforms, but no agreement could be made this week.
The Athletic report that UEFA are willing to give up some control to the clubs but want to retain a veto on key decisions.
Once these disputes are put to bed, you can be pretty confident the reforms will go through.
The new format would see the competition extended to 36 teams, with every team playing five home and five away matches in the ‘group’ stage, with their opponents decided by a seeding system, instead of the usual six games played with the 32 teams divided into eight groups of four.
