The UEFA mafia strikes again and injures players

The 2024-25 season of Europe’s premier club football tournament introduced a new UEFA Champions League (UCL) format, replacing the group stage with a league stage.

The UCL is football’s most coveted and popular club competition. An estimated 450 million viewers watched Real Madrid beat Borussia Dortmund in last season’s final on June 1. Unfortunately, as a Barcelona fan, I was one of those 450 million.

In the new league level, teams will be ranked equally, with each team playing against eight others. The UCL also now has four additional teams, bringing the total from 32 to 36.

The changes to the UCL format have sparked controversy. Critics argue they are damaging European football culture and forcing players to sit out more games at the expense of their health – all in the name of increasing revenue.

This is how the new format works

Since 1960 there have been 32 teams in the UCL. Until last season, the competition consisted of five rounds: the group stage, the round of 16, the quarter-finals, the semi-finals and the final. The group stage consisted of eight groups with four teams per group. Each team in a group played the other twice, home and away, with the top two teams advancing to the knockout rounds.

The new format is now referred to as a “Swiss model”. All 36 teams are placed in the same rankings, with each team playing against eight other teams – four home and four away.

At the end of the league phase, the best eight teams automatically advance to the round of 16. The teams placed ninth to 24th will take part in a two-game playoff round, with the winner of each match also advancing to the round of 16. The teams placed ninth through 16th will be seeded and will play the second leg at home against the teams ranked 17 to 24.

The last 12 teams at the end of the league phase are automatically eliminated, while the rest of the tournament, from the round of 16 onwards, remains unchanged from the previous UCL format.

Overall, this new format has increased the number of games from 96 in the old group stage to 144, with each team playing at least two additional games.

UEFA mafia

UEFA has recently begun to commercialize the sport at the expense of its players and football culture. For example the organization introduced the Nations League in 2018 – an international European tournament that replaced exhibition games – to increase viewership and sell more profitable broadcast rights to international games.

For me, this format change is no exception. UEFA expects to generate more than $1.7 billion in revenue this season, mostly from broadcast rights, which have increased because of the additional games. The competition’s operating fund also increased by nearly $600 million compared to last season, bringing the total to over $3.5 billion, which will be distributed among teams based on their performance in the competition.

UEFA official website states that the new format is designed to “increase the number of meaningful games… throughout the competition.”

In other words, the new format is intended to line the pockets of UEFA executives and club shareholders under the guise of more “meaningful” games. Instead, we are left with an overly complicated system that involves unnecessary league and playoff games. I believe this overloads fans with UCL games and reduces the importance of the domestic European leagues, undermining Europe’s traditional football culture.

Injuries, more injuries

What I see as an even more problematic problem is that UEFA is cramming more games into the players’ schedules.

ESPN reported that this season will be the longest club campaign in football historyThis is mainly due to the expansion of the FIFA Club World Cup to 32 teams instead of the previous seven. The UEFA Nations League has also contributed to longer seasons by hosting more international matches for teams each year.

These extra games have led to widespread condemnation from the football community for being harmful and stressful for players. Manchester City midfielder and 2024 Ballon D’Or winner Rodri suggested players go on strike in protest at the excessive number of games, but six days later, on September 27, he tore his anterior cruciate ligament.

Real Madrid defender Dani Carvajal, who claimed at the start of the season that “we can’t play 72 games (in a season)”, had to abandon his season after tearing two ligaments and injuring a tendon in a game in October. UEFA’s greedy new UCL format seems to me to be another step towards putting profits over player health.

“(The new format) will make the competition more unpredictable and interesting,” claimed UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin. I agree that the new format makes things more unpredictable – for all the wrong reasons.