The article criticizes the over-representation of English teams in the Champions League, arguing that it contradicts the competition's original intention. The author points out the irony of a competition named "Champions League" featuring multiple teams from a single nation, a situation that wasn't always the case.
The expansion of the Champions League in the mid-1990s, driven by financial interests, is cited as the cause for this imbalance. This expansion prioritized the financial needs of major clubs over the original idea of featuring the champion club from each participating country. The article notes that teams have won the Champions League without having won their domestic league, further illustrating the shift from a purely meritocratic system.
The author expresses concern that the current format, with its expanded group stages, prioritizes profit over sporting integrity. The element of jeopardy present in previous formats is cited as a key element lost in the current system.
The very idea that whichever outfit wins it this year are guaranteed but two games in next season’s edition would be laughed out of every boardroom across Europe.
But there was something in the jeopardy of such a draw that made the European Cup such a compelling concept, an attraction that has long since been lost in ever expanding group stages designed solely to bolster the bottom line.
Maybe the problem we hopeless nostalgists have is in its name. After all, as titles go, the Champions League does offer the suggestion that this is a place where you can only find the champion club of each participating country.
That, though, was a ship that sailed long ago. Since the mid nineties, when the competition expanded to cater to the financial demands of the big clubs, such a concept was greedily dispensed with.
United and Spurs are not the first to benefit. For a decade Arsène Wenger was lauded for getting Arsenal up to the fourth place to ensure qualification, indeed Liverpool have twice lifted the trophy since the turn of the century without having previously won their domestic league.
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