Established to give new life to the second tier European football competition, Europa League has failed to attract crowds. UEFA are now looking to end this competition by replacing it with a kind of a super Champions League.
The UEFA Champions League crushes everything in its path. The cup with big years has become a beacon of European football for years and has confirmed its status as the most prestigious competition across the Old Continent.
It is not surprising to see that most of the big guns in Europe have no time for the Europa League as it’s not as lucrative as the UCL.
But at the same time, faced with this omnipotence of the Champions League, it is difficult for the likes of Europa League/UEFA Cup to exist.
The UEFA Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup did not succeed in diminishing the dominance of Champions League. The competition is more lucrative and is famous all over the world which makes it difficult for the lesser European tournaments to attract attention.
Now, UEFA is trying its best to introduce another European competition that can have a good effect on the global popularity of European football.
While talking to RTL, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Olympique-Lyonnais-c40130 president Jean-Michel Aulas admitted that he would always prefer Champions League over Europa League.
“Things have just changed the priorities of European clubs. UEFA Europa League with a device economically interesting than last year. The gap was 1 to 5.5 and will fall by 1 to 3.5. Europa League is a minimum. For us, if the Champions League can save between
20 and 30 million Euros, Europa League can bring in between 5 and 10 million Euros. But the Champions League remains the main objective.”
Despite the efforts of the European body, Europa League is more of a spare tire in front of the Champions League.
Thus the Europa League could be put into oblivion at the end of the current TV rights agreements for Europa League. The agreement expires in 2015.
The future competition that UEFA want will involve 80 teams that will be divided into 20 groups. Every major championship will have 6 teams in which four will qualify automatically while 2 via play-offs.
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