Juventus President and chairman of the European Club Association Andrea Agnelli outlined his plans for a new Champions League format.
Agnelli sat down with The Guardian to discuss the backlash against FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s proposed new approach to the Club World Cup.
“We all want more international [European] games and less domestic, combined with an overall reduction of games because we don’t want to go over a certain number. And we said: ‘Let’s come up with a proposal.’”
Juventus President and chairman of the European Club Association Andrea Agnelli outlined his plans for a new Champions League format.
Agnelli sat down with The Guardian to discuss the backlash against FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s proposed new approach to the Club World Cup.
“We all want more international [European] games and less domestic, combined with an overall reduction of games because we don’t want to go over a certain number. And we said: ‘Let’s come up with a proposal.’”
Agnelli and the ECA want to maintain 32 clubs in the Champions League, but rather than eight groups of four teams, they’d have four much larger groups of eight sides each.
They would therefore play at least 14 matches in the opening phase of the Champions League rather than the current six.
“You could say that whoever participates [in the expanded Champions League] has to play in the national league with six U21 or U23 players, but it’s brainstorming because there isn’t a project at the moment.
“Whether we are Man United, Real Madrid, Juventus, or Legia Warsaw, Sporting Lisbon, and Anderlecht, we all want more international exposure, to develop our brands. Today everything is about brand exposure.
“I think if we manage to find some grounds in which we can discuss this with the European national [football] associations, the European leagues, UEFA and the clubs, I think it’s just a normal evolution you would have in the game.”
Infantino invited only certain clubs to view plans for an expanded Club World Cup and this irritated Agnelli, as the ECA is meant to represent them collectively.
The Juventus chief also dismissed Real Madrid and Barcelona enthusiasm for the plan.
“If you go around to anybody saying: ‘Do you want to play football for a couple of weeks, on average you get €150m, the answer is going to be yes – it’s fairly obvious.
“This is too important for the future of football than to enter it with no information, blindfolded. As I told him, the better idea is thinking about what is the role of FIFA, the governing body? FIFA should be a governing body about good practices, not about entering commercial joint ventures with unknown investors. I am surprised the way they are behaving at the moment.
“Whatever you propose in football you will not be 100% backed. The point is the stakeholders should sit down and discuss it. You have competitive balance [problems], polarisation, we want to sit down and talk about it.
“This would be under UEFA auspices, and there would be [financial] solidarity mechanisms. I am on the record with you, but I can assure you that many of my colleagues have very similar views.”