A well-known Ukrainian journalist Mykola Nesenyuk dedicated a post on Facebook to the new format of the Champions League.
Mykola NeseniukThe new format of the Champions League, which is not easy to understand for the uninitiated, did not just arise from the free imagination of European Football Union officials. UEFA is counting the money, trying to sell each game of this tournament at the highest possible price. This has become increasingly difficult in recent years as the ever-widening gap between the two dozen super clubs and the rest of Europe's football teams has made the once intriguing group tournaments all too predictable - the two winners of each of the eight groups could be almost unmistakably identified before the tournament even started. This meant that group tournament games were becoming less and less interesting and attractive to viewers, and thus to sponsors.
There were two ways out. Either leave the same fifteen to twenty well-known richest superclubs in the Champions League, thereby creating the very "superleague" that football's rich have been talking about for the third decade, or come up with something new. The new one was the "Swiss" system, a chess competition system known for more than a hundred years, which allows for ten rounds of competition with any number of participants. According to the Swiss system, each subsequent round involves matches of the strongest against the strongest, which adds interest to the competition and makes the final result quite fair.
So the smart people at UEFA decided to use this experience. At the same time, they did not think about why no one has ever held a football competition according to the Swiss system. If they had, they would have realized that it is easy for chess players to sit down at another table the next day and play with the opponent they have chosen yesterday. A football match, on the other hand, requires many days of preparation, which includes not only the readiness of the stadium and the availability of transportation and hotels for the participants. Fans have to come and attend the game, and they have to plan this trip or trip in advance. The interval between Champions League games ranges from eight to fourteen days, and this is not enough time to turn around an entire enterprise with thousands of employees and millions of customers, which is every (!) match of this tournament, from scratch.
When it became finally clear, it was too late to refuse to switch to the new format. This is not the Ukrainian championship, the rules of which can be changed almost painlessly every week - the Champions League is worth millions! That is why we settled on the current format, which in fact no longer has any advantages of the "Swiss" system. Because what is the main thing about the Swiss system? In each round, the neighbors in the standings play - the strongest with the strongest, the average with the average, the weak with the weak. What did we get from the complicated computer draw? Each of the known favorites will still play three or four matches against weaker opponents, against whom they are almost doomed to win. Just like it was under the old group tournament rules, where the same three or four matches were uninteresting for the superclubs, their fans and sponsors.
So was it worth it to do all this, organizing a tournament that you can't understand without a bottle? I think it was worth it: the attempt to introduce Swiss-style football in the Champions League will further convince everyone that the "super league" that has been talked about for so long and that is guaranteed to bring in an order of magnitude more money has no alternative. Unfortunately, we will definitely not be there. And in the current Champions League, our representative can hardly count on anything serious, except for winning one or two matches.
Mykola NESENYUK
