UEFA considering shake up to European competitions

The Europa League’s not quite useless, but it’s close. For a lot of fans, it gives their clubs a chance to play unique opponents in locations their team would otherwise never see. When big clubs have an off year and fall into UEFA’s second club tournament, we get weird matches like Liverpool visiting Anzhi Makhachkala or Inter Milan going to Azerbaijan’s FK Neftchi.

The problem is nobody ever asked what it would be like it Internazionale went to Azerbaijan.

No matter how quirky Europa League’s matchups get, there’s an inherent, debilitating problem the competition can never avoid. The stakes are too low for any team to care until the tournament’s final stages, when the possibility of silverware becomes a real possibility. But for most of that 15-match slog to the title, there’s a lot of justified apathy.

So it’s no surprised to hear from UEFA’s president that the governing body will consider changes to Europe’s club competitions, getting rid of Europa League in favor of expanding Champions League from 32 to 64 teams.

“We’re discussing it,” Platini told Ouest France about the proposed move. “We will make a decision in 2014. Nothing is decided yet.

“There is an ongoing debate to determine what form the European competitions will have between 2015 and 2018.”

The European Club Association also acknowledged the possibility, providing a posturing comment:

“We exchanged initial thoughts, but the discussions are to follow,” a an ECA representative told CNN. “For the time being there’s nothing concrete.”

The ECA represents 207 clubs across UEFA.

“As a principle, ECA is happy with the competition structure as it is. However, we are open to discuss changes or improvements in light of the 2015-18 competition cycle.”

The proposed changes would have the unfortunate side effect of transposing some of Europa League’s problems (too big, too many meaningless games) onto UEFA’s showcase competition. But it’s hard to see dropping Europa League and the 48 European spots it grants ECA clubs without providing some concession. At least this concession has the convenient consequence of putting teams in a tournament that matters.

Changes won’t come for three years, if they come at all. In the meantime, fans can look forward to many more Thursday nights scanning final scores of games they never intended to watch.