The UEFA Champions League season 2018 changes & who wanted them

[ian1964 10,613]

Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Chairman of the ECA (European Club Association) said in September 2016 that the changes the ECA forced UEFA to accept in the UEFA Champions League (UCL), to be implemented in 2018 would:

‘I believe there are no winners and no losers. The new concept is not a revolution, it’s just an evolution, and I’m convinced that everyone will benefit’.

Not quite the Martin Luther King ‘I believe’ speech. Especially since it was a lie.

The UEFA Champions League season 2018 changes & who wanted them

It was no surprise in 2016/17 and this season that Scottish football media did not publicized that Rummenigge’s sidekick was Peter Lawwell, his fellow member on the ECA board, delivering the following changes to the UCL competition:

1. The 4 big European leagues would get their 4 automatic entries directly into the UCL group stage.
2. The number of qualifying rounds for the Scottish team would increase from 3 to 4.
3. There would be a reduction from 5 to 4 of places for the small European leagues in the UCL group stage.
4. ECA gained increased representation at the top level of UEFA

These ‘innovations’ started this 2018/19 season but were agreed over the 2016/17 season.

Now half of the 32 UCL group stage positions are now reserved and off limits to the smaller European leagues. Scottish teams now face the hurdle of 4 qualifiers. But Rumminge/ECA said ‘everyone would benefit’. Aye right.

The large non-EPL European clubs, especially Rumminge’s Bayern, were screaming that they could not compete with the TV money flowing into English clubs and therefore needed 4 direct entries each into the ECL group stage for the 4 four top performing leagues: English, German, Italian and Spanish.

Rumminge and the ECA board held a gun at UEFA’s head with rumours of a breakaway competition and UEFA folded. And who has been on the ECA Board since 2014?

Peter Lawwell, and he of course voted with the board. A turkey voting for Christmas? ECA may have dangled talk of previous ECL winners getting a free place too but that was never going to eventuate.

We now have the situation whereby 1967 when Celtic won the European Cup after 4 rounds they were in the final. Now it takes 4 qualifiers, courtesy of Lawwell’s vote, for Celtic or any other Scottish club, to only get into the group stages.

This ECA/UEFA deal surpasses the Scottish TV deal that Lawwell and Doncaster ‘negotiated’ when they were caught flying to London together and returned with the ‘magic beans’ of the ‘giant’ deal.

Extra Hurdles for Scottish Clubs

Of course Celtic never made it through their 3^rd qualifier against AEK Athens. However giving Scottish qualifiers an extra round so early in the season puts yet another hurdle in front of the lucrative ECL group stage. Qualifiers are now starting mid July before the league starts. How many players, especially after possibly playing in the World Cup/Euros, are still carrying injuries with no rest.

Other Scottish clubs have never expected Peter Lawwell to look after Scottish football in general in UEFA. And ECA is a club organization but in this case he didn’t even look after Celtic. Plus it affects other Scottish clubs in the future.

For his reward in endorsing the UCL changes Rumminge gave Lawwell one of the 4 ECA seats on the UEFA’s Professional Football Strategy Council (PFSC) and was appointed in August 2017.

Mr Lawwell is also a member, since 2015, of the UEFA Club Competitions Committee.

The ECA website in April 2017 welcomed the coming 2018 changes saying that:

“A working group will shortly be established under the umbrella of the UEFA Club Competitions Committee and will be tasked with finalising all details relating to the new club competition concept for 2018-21 in the coming months.”

So Lawwell wasn’t just voting on the ECA to endorse the change he was at the other end in UEFA with oversight of the implementation of the 2018 changes described above.

If anybody was forewarned about the changes it should have been Peter Lawwell. He was one of the ECA (European Club Association) board endorsers of the 4 qualifier rounds and the UEFA implementers. But he did not even prepare his club’s squad for even 3 rounds?

The Agency Problem

Don’t get between a football committee and Peter Lawwell, you could be trampled, as Celtic’s interests were, in Mr Lawwell’s quest to increase his network.

It is a well known problem in business called ‘The Agency Problem’. If you own a business or a shareholding, how do you know whether an ambitious employee is acting solely in your interest or not?

How does Celtic ensure that Peter Lawwell works for Celtic and not just his own interest? Lawwell seems to get his bonus whether Celtic is successful or not.

The Celtic shareholders at the 2017 AGM had the chance to question Lawwell about the ECA board decision or how his bonus is calculated.

Did they raise any questions? No.

Are the shareholders/fans even aware? They are the first line in holding their clubs executives and directors accountable but sadly they did not step up.

Blinded by the disco lights?

https://footballtaxhavens.wordpress.com/2018/08/25/blinded-by-the-disco-lights-how-do-celtic-shareholders-fans-ensure-that-peter-lawwell-works-for-celtic-and-not-just-his-own-interest/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[the gunslinger 3,366]

If lawwell really voted for a reduction in the likelyhood of scottish teams getting to the cl group stages he should have his fit and proper person status revoked and be forcibly removed from scottish football.

I doubt he did though.

Can we evidence him doing so?

[compo 6,588]

It might be more simple if the teams that qualify just went into a draw right from the start until they get to the last 32 then draw 8 sections .