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By Max Mathews
Last Updated: 21/05/19 3:31pm
La Liga president Javier Tebas has described UEFA’s plans to radically overhaul European club football from 2024 as “a disaster”.
Under a European Club Association proposal that was presented by UEFA to European leagues this month, 24 out of the 32 teams in the Champions League group stage would retain their places for the following season, as promotion and relegation are introduced into three tiers of competition.
However, Europe’s domestic leagues have rejected those proposals, which would see a near-closed Champions League, saying it would benefit only a few “rich and dominant clubs” and have told UEFA to scrap its reforms.
“These proposals are a disaster for European football,” La Liga boss Tebas said. “They would destroy domestic leagues by relegating them to the fourth tier of European competition.
“They would concentrate even more wealth at the top and essentially close the top tier – we can’t allow that to happen.”
Asked what he would do instead, Tebas added: “I would propose not to change it at all.
“These proposals are not to reform the Champions League, they are to create an entirely new competition. We don’t need that. What we have is working.”
League meetings in France and Germany rejected the plans last week, despite being championed by ECA and Juventus president Andrea Agnelli, while the Premier League also made its opposition clear.
While Tebas was speaking in London on Tuesday, the ECA responded, saying it still had “the aim of evolving a vision for a fair, balanced and representative model which will be of more benefit to the club game across all of Europe, from the smallest to the biggest clubs”.
It added it believes in a “football ecosystem where more games of quality can take place on the European stage at all levels,” with “greater diversity and financial stability across the competitions” and a “broader and deeper base of clubs competing and developing over time”.
The ECA will next discuss the issue with its members at a general assembly in Malta in early June.
