The FA Cup is still the best competition in the world.
It's a pity some of the bigger clubs don't respect it like they should. They should always play their strongest side.
The way the Champions League and EUFA Cups are organised is a farce. They should all be in the hat together and a straight draw. No seeding.
The idea to make the winner of the fa cup go into the Champions League is a good one - fair enough the winner is usually a big 4 team but it will mean the big teams will HAVE to put out a full team because they won't be able to risk it
I'd sooner them bring back the Cup Winners Cup than have anything to do with the Champions League. It's a contradiction in terms anyway because they're not all champions.
Go back to the old days and have a straight knockout for the champions and the holders.
All the Champions League does is generate more money for the rich clubs. To an extent, the EUFA Cup is doing the same. I'd sooner see some of that money filter down to the so-called smaller clubs.
I would extend the Eufa Cup to more teams and have a straight knockout. You'd get the same amount of European games but with more clubs involved.
You could also offer insentives like having the top scoring team given automatic entry or the top team in the Fair Play League.
I just hate to see the big clubs keep getting bigger. The English League is looking more like the Scottish League with the same teams winning every year.
Also another quick point - it won't change and will only get worse as the big clubs are too powerful - Platini is saying he wants to do something about spreading the wealth to all clubs but it's pie in the sky and will never happen
I love the Champions League - highlight of the t.v. footballing week for me. Best teams, best players in the world. I would hate to lose the group stage. It would be terrible if Madrid, Barcelona, Milan or one of the British sides got knocked out early. I preferred it when they went into a second group phase rather than knock out - even more high quality football.
Welling v Real Madrid in the knock out stages..........sounds good. Masters to Leon..........forward to Chippy...........great pass to Ellis...lovely first touch, then passed the full back to deliver an inch perfect pass to............oh bugger...........Blackman missed an open goal. Oh well, dream on
I personally think the the Premier League is boring now. The so called top four will no doubt finish in the top four again and will continue to do so with perhaps one of the next group breaking in occasionally.
The big clubs are getting too much of the money available and will therefore be able to afford the best players.
I don't want to see the same teams winning everything year in year out; it's boring. It's got to stop or else the sport will suffer.
I think Platini knows this and is trying to rectify it. Good luck to him but he's got his work cut out.
The place to start is the European competitions. I certainly don't agree that the group stages are good. Give me a knockout competition any day. They're so more exciting than group stages. You win you're through, you lose you're out.
A similar thing is happening in F1 motor racing. There are a few teams capable of winning the championship whereas you could never predict the outcome some years back. Bernie is in charge and all he's worried about is the money to be made. He has no interest in the spectators and actually said once that it would be easier to hold GP's without spectators. Just show them on TV. I went to every British GP from 1960 to 1998 but I wouldn't walk round the corner to go to one now. I don't always watch it on TV either and I'm a huge motor racing fan.
The Americans seem to have better systems with their sport. The draft system in Grid Iron Football is a great idea. The weakest team gets first choice of the best players. They can then trade them once they've got them and get some decent money. Their motor sport is the best in the world. In NASCAR Champ Cars and IRL you rarely see a driver win two races on the trot and the championships go down to the wire. The IRL was brilliant this year only being decided on the last lap of the last race.
I agree Alan, Would much rather it went back to the European Cup and a knockout competition. Rather than beat some austrian goat herding team and qualify for a league.
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Alexander O'Neal 1987 "I'm fed up cos all you wanna do is criticize "
It is easier with some American sports as entry into the sport comes from their colleges so they can regulate how the signings occur more easily.
Not quite sure how the signings are regulated in the ice hockey though as they trawl the world for players.
The easiest way of shaking things up in England would be to limit any nation to a maximum of 3 sides in the CL, thus ensuring at least one of our 'big four' missed out. That would end the self perpetuation in England and also Europe as there appears no likely challenge to Spain, Italy or England for the top three rankings that get four entries.
The monetary angle does not only apply here. I suspect if Aga Hareide had not been poached for Norway manager and a shambles made of appointing his successor I would soon be celebrating Rosenborg's 16th straight title win as they were raking the money in comparitively and were able to buy most of the best players in Norway. Unless you get someone with very deep pockets (like the guy at Shaktar Donetsk) this becomes self perpetuating in the smaller countries as well. However, I shall drink one to Knut Toerum for the Chelsea result, look forward to a trip to Schalke and then, at best a Uefa cup trip next year to somewhere in bloody Kazakhstan given this year's league performance. Gone for good though, I suspect, are the days of Rosenborg (or a similar size club) going to AC Milan, Madrid and Bremen and winning as happened in the late 1990's.
As for the second stage group producing good football, maybe for 3 matches, but then the groups were quite often set and the reserves would get wheeled out.
