Platini Plays the Popularity Card Again
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by Tyduffy
Michel Platini was elected president of UEFA, largely on a plan to help the little man. His original plan would place the maximum of Champions' League spots for any country at three, forcing the three largest leagues (England, Spain, and Italy) to each relinquish a birth to the lesser leagues. This would, according to its proponents, help to minimize the monetary disparity throughout Europe by redistributing the valuable Champions League cash to clubs in smaller European Leagues.
Finally, after winning his election of course, coming to terms with the fact that this would not have a prayer of being implemented, he appears to have issued a compromise. Instead of reducing the number of Champions League births for a country, he would assign one birth to the winner of the domestic cup competition. This would, theoretically, provide a far more democratic opportunity for a smaller club to pull off an upset and achieve access to the Champions League millions.
Platini's plan, like many of his others, presents a wonderful window dressing, but, in fact, does very little to solve the issue at hand.
The first problem with the proposal is the Cup competitions themselves. If they are to be used for entry into a Europe-wide competition, they need to conform to a uniform standard. Well performing French clubs would automatically be disadvantaged for Champions League entry, since their cup automatically gives home-field advantage to the lesser squad. Because of the FA Cup draw, one English club may have to slog through Premier League teams while another skates through against lower opposition at home. There is no standard for evaluating cup competitions against each other, let alone individual performances within each cup competition. Without a standard across or within national boundaries, there is no way to equate winning the domestic cup with the body of work required to finish at or near the top of the table in a league.
Second, implementing the proposal would change very little. The last team outside the "Big Four" to win the FA Cup was Everton in 1995. Had this rule been in effect, there would have been no change in each of the last 12 seasons, and 17 of the last 19 seasons. The results are more staggered in the Copa Del Ray and the Coppa Italia, but that is more due to the bigger clubs not taking them seriously than them being great competitions. With a Champions' League place on the line, the G14 clubs are only going to take the domestic cups more seriously, making the results even more uniform. Even if the aim is to redistribute the wealth, clubs get so much money from TV contracts now that the Champions League money fails to tip the balance of power as much as it did in the past. Is a radical reformatting really necessary if it would only take effect once every few years?
Finally, it would change the meaning of the cup competitions themselves, particularly the FA Cup. The "romance," real or fictional, of the FA Cup is engendered by the tradition and pride associated with winning itself. Adding the extra incentive of a Big Cup place would seemingly enhance the importance of the competition. However, it would actually minimize it. It would make the competition merely about the Champions League place, rather than an end in itself. It would intensify the interest if a Reading or a Sunderland sneaked into the Final, but it would also make the already qualified Chelsea-Man U match-up even more gruesome to watch.
Platini's proposal to give the Cup Winners a Champions League place, has a number of problems. The Cup competitions don't provide a coherent standard for determining entry into the competition, it would have little practical effect on the alleged monopoly of elite teams, and it would diminish the cup competitions itself. With no real tangible benefits and many problems, it would prove trivial tinkering at best. With the Champions League viewed as the pinnacle of European football and with fan interest and money generation never having been higher, one has to ask why?
Originally published here.
