Champions league boredom again

After yet more meaningless games in the Champions League this week, one seriously has to question just how wrong UEFA have gotten it all. Why is it, that what is supposed to be Europe's flagship club competition, is so dour that the big contenders don't even have to take the initial group stage seriously? Because it is so easy for the big clubs, with two clear seeded favourites destined to qualify from each group. Indeed, the only excitement about the Champions League group stage is the hope than an underdog is going to break though all of the monotony and battle their way through to the knockout stage. But of course, the competition is not designed to work in favour of the smaller teams who enter it. It is not designed to work like that because UEFA want big guns occupying all of the quarter and semi final places of course. They don't want Genk v APOEL to try and sell as a Champions League final. They want Europe's best of Barcelona v Bayern Munich squaring off in their showcase finale. So where has it all gone wrong? Why is there an abject disinterest in those midweek games? The simple answer is that UEFA have gone for quantity over quality. So why not reformat the competition to oust the yawning midweek boredom, which is turning off more fans than it is attracting new.

We have all heard about the furore caused by FIFA President Sepp Blatter and his Blatterism over racism. The whole thing for me, was not about whether he should go or not, it was more about what is really being done at the top levels of the football tiers. It wouldn't have mattered if Sepp Blatter had stood up and said, "Yes, I know there is racism happening in football." A simple admission of a problem doesn't mean that Blatter, UEFA President Michel Platini or anyone in charge of a football governing body has the power of clicking their fingers and magically making any issues go away. Of course Blatter's initial reaction was that there wasn't a problem with racism, if he had said that there was, that would mean an admission by himself that he's done a pretty crappy job at stamping it out all of these years. The same can be said of any problem. Football's governing bodies probably see the glaring issues with the game, but admission of change simply means that they have been mismanaging and no-one wants that on their resume in such sycophantic regimes. It is sad when, as a fan, you see the heads of the beautiful game getting swept away by commercialism and pandering to keep everybody happy. That's why Michel Platini, a legend in his own right, spurred such interest when he became President of UEFA. Here surely was a man who was in touch with the fans. Apparently not, because he devalued a Champions League which already had major flaws, further still.

All of this leads me back to the ennui fest that is the Champions League Group Stage. How out of touch are UEFA with fans that we get such a poorly organized elite competition? Only by sweeping the board clean and Platini admitting that he got his new formatting of the competition wrong, can a breath of fresh air be swept through the tournament. Platini opened the door for more of the domestic League Champions from smaller nations such as Belarus and Cyprus to get a fair crack of the Champions League whip. That was a huge mistake because it simply cheapened the competition. Forget fairness and equality across the board for the member nations of UEFA, this is not what the majority of fans want to see. No matter how many cracks of those whips the league winners from Slovenia are going to get, they are not going to win the Champions League. It's not going to happen. Even some of Europe's best like Manchester United and AC Milan can't live with the elite power of Barcelona and Real Madrid, so what chance does the Romanian national Champions have? Zip. Zero. Nada. So forget all of that namby-pamby equality, because football isn't equal in standards. We want to see only the best v the best in the Champions League. So don't bother putting the minnows in there in the first place and then trying to sell it like it has any relevance.

If it is an issue of money, then UEFA are holding themselves back as well, because they could make the Champions League highly profitable, as well as making it more exciting. They could make the Champions League actually mean something. How? By making every game important, just the as NFL does. It all counts there and it should in the Champions League. Scrap all the nonsense of having second, third and fourth place teams get into the tournament for starters. Throw those 2nd and 3rd placed league finishers, i.e. ‘Losers' not ‘Champions' into the Europa League. Make it a Champions League proper, for league winners only, and make it for the league winners of just the eight highest ranked UEFA teams in their National Team Coefficient rankings. As it stands that would be Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, England, Russia, Croatia, Greece. The likes of Portugal and France, who are missing from the list, well it would place more importance on their national sides doing well if they want to get a representative back into the Champions League. Create a link between National success and Champions League status. Split those eight teams who will have actually earned the place in the competition by winning their league, into two round robin groups of four by a 1,3,5,7 and 2,3,4,8 ranking.

If we would have followed that format for this season, we would have had Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, Man Utd and Dinamo Zagreb in Group A, and Ajax, AC Milan, Zenit St Petersburg and Olympiakos in Group B. Make each side play their group opponents home and away, and then play each team from the other group once (two home and two away fixtures at random). That would mean each team would play ten matches before the top two from each group go straight to a semi final. The same amount as a team has to play now to get to that stage. The difference? Every match would count. Get the fixture list right and each week we would have some top matches to look forward to, instead of, well, nonsense.

Yes, we would only have four, instead of sixteen matches to look forward to on Champions League week, but four matches which would much higher quality. More of the best v the best. Come on Platini, incite some of that French revolutionary spirit and get serious, get back to the fans who worshipped you so on the pitch. Make it for the elite, so that teams desire it more. Simply put, let Europe's best fight it out for the honour. Let the winners of the Champions League actually earn it.

Check out http://www.utterlyfrank.com/sport/soccer/champions-league-boredom/