Platini's European revolution - the full story. Part one.

This is an opinion piece, as well as an information piece, so I'll start by making it clear that I find the idea of allowing cup winners into the Champions League, in preference to the lowest-ranked league teams that currently enter, a fairly lousy one. For me domestic league achievement: whether this be, for example, finishing 4th in the English Premier League, 3rd in the Bundesliga or 2nd in the SPL - is far more significant than winning a domestic cup competition. But apart from that I think Platini's ideas are excellent.

Now I suppose this might confuse some people. Am I being ironic perhaps? How can I possibly be serious about liking Platini's ideas but not wanting cup winners in the Champions League? Isn't that the whole point of the changes?

Well sadly, because I suspect I could be quite an asset, I am not privy to the inner thoughts of UEFA or it's President but Monsieur Platini's election pledge was to open up the Champions League to more domestic champions. It is his attempts to do this, without drastically reducing the quality of the competition, that I find significant. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the domestic cup winner angle is Platini's political subterfuge; the bone he'll happily throw back to appease the "big leagues" and the G14, while the "juicy steak" part of his plan slips through under the radar. Let's look at the proposals in more detail and perhaps you will see what I mean.

The overall format of the Champions League - 32 teams in eight groups of four - isn't going to change. But the qualification procedure is. At the moment only 16 teams have direct access to the groups, of which a maximum of ten but some years just nine, are domestic champions. In future it is proposed to increase this number to 22 - of which at least twelve or thirteen will actually be champions - an increase of three. The other three new "direct access" spots will go to the third teams from Spain, England and Italy. Additionally, it is suggested that the qualifying draw be split between the remaining champions (39 or 40 teams) and non-champions (16 teams) with a further six spots in the group stages being given to the champions that make it through their section of the draw. That would bring the total number of champions amongst the 32 teams up to at least 18. That's a big change from the current situation - where it's theoretically possible for the nine champions who qualify directly for the groups to be the only ones there.

In reality the lowest number of domestic champions that have entered the group stage draw is 13, in 2002-03 and again in the current season. Last season's total of 16 is the highest since the 1999-2000 season, the very first year of the 32 team group stage, when the number was 18. Taking steps to increase the total number of champions back to 18 each season seems to me very reasonable - increasing diversity without going so far as to seriously threaten the quality of the competition.

The threat to that "quality" is already a major concern of many critics of the current plans. So, let's have a look at how the proposals might affect this. Ignoring the "cup winner angle", which I implore M. Platini to abort if that isn't already part of his "cunning plan", let's look at what the current season's competition might have looked like if the lowest placed team from the top sixteen countries had had their own separate qualifying competition.

The sixteen teams playing for four places would've been: Valencia, Lazio, Arsenal, Toulouse, Werder Bremen, Benfica, Ajax, AEK Athens, Spartak Moscow, Steaua Bucharest, Rangers, Genk, Shakhtar Donetsk, Slavia Prague, Besiktas and Basel.

Certainly the group stage would've looked fairly different given that ten of the above teams qualified under the current format. But would it be seriously worse in terms of quality?

The four teams seeded to reach the groups would've been Valencia, Arsenal, Benfica and Ajax. Of course Ajax already lost in the "real world", so let's replace them in the groups with the next highest ranked team - Werder Bremen. So Lazio, Steaua Bucharest, Rangers, Shakhtar Donetsk, Slavia Prague and Besiktas would be replaced by domestic champions.

Two of these replacements are pretty straightforward. Steaua Bucharest, Romanian runners-up last year, qualified for the groups by beating BATE Borisov of Belarus in the final qualifying round. Dinamo Bucharest, who were actually Romanian champions, were drawn against Lazio - so Dinamo in & Steaua out. Similarly Sparta Prague, the Czech champions, were unfortunate enough to draw Arsenal so substituting them for Slavia doesn't present a serious problem. Indeed in these two cases making the route to the groups easier for champions than runners-up seems like a reasonable form of justice.

Next, based on the relevant UEFA coefficient rankings, Anderlecht - the Belgian champions would've automatically qualified. Since Anderlecht were eliminated by the Turkish champions lets have Anderlecht replace Besiktas. Rangers narrowly defeated Crvena Zvezda (the former Red Star Belgrade) and Shakhtar Donetsk weren't significantly superior to Salzburg. Finally, Lazio have to be replaced. There are any number of respectable candidates here - all of whom are also decent alternatives for the fairly random replacements I've already named - Levski Sofia & FC Kobenhavn both played the groups last year; Beitar Jerusalem have received heavy investment for an Israeli club; Dinamo Zagreb played extremely well against Werder Bremen in the third qualifying round this year.

So overall we might have: Lazio, Steaua, Rangers, Shakhtar, Slavia and Besiktas out - Dinamo Zagreb, Dinamo Bucharest, Crvena Zvezda, Red Bull Salzburg, Sparta Prague and Anderlecht in. For me a very small price in terms of quality - indeed some might nearly call it a freebie - for a serious boost in terms of diversity. Surely a change worth trying for at least the three seasons from 2009-12 - the term of the next TV contract - at the end of which we're bound to be talking about possible changes all over again?

In my next report I will look at how Michel Platini's proposed changes are due to impact on the UEFA Cup.