© Provided by The TelegraphChampions League ball.
Clubs across Europe are expected on Wednesday to turn their fire on new proposals drawn up by the Champions League elite to revolutionise the European game and hand more money and power to the established old guard.
Criticism is expected for the likes of Juventus, Real Madrid and Manchester United that their new expanded Champions League post-2024 will disadvantage those clubs outside the elite, who will be represented among the 300 attending the virtual European Leagues (EL) summit.
Many of these so-called smaller clubs are members of the European Club Association (ECA) - which has negotiated the changes, and owns 50 per cent of the company that operates Uefa competitions. They do not feel their voice is heard at the ECA alongside those of the continent's traditional superpowers.
Many of the smaller clubs have won European trophies in the past but would struggle to qualify for the Champions League under the new format for the competition due to come into effect in 2024, even as champions of their domestic leagues. These clubs believe that the changes to the competition are being carried out only to benefit the 15-20 elite clubs who can claim to be global brands.
The EL, which represents domestic leagues across Uefa's 55 member countries, will also call on Uefa and powerful clubs to reduce the number of Champions League group stage games per club in the new proposals post 2024 from ten to eight. It says there is no room in the calendar for a leap from 125 games to 225 games.
There is the prospect that Football League (EFL) chairman Rick Parry will raise the future of the League Cup under the new proposals. It is an important revenue earner for the EFL but could be squeezed out the calendar by the new expanded Champions League.
The EL also oppose the proposal that three of the four newly created Champions League group stage places in the post-2024 expansion from 32 clubs to 36 will be awarded on the basis of Uefa co-efficient - historical performance. That is viewed as a qualification safety net for famous clubs from the Premier League or Spain's Liga, should they have a poor domestic season.
Instead the EL wishes to maintain the status quo that all qualification is based season by season on domestic performance. Lars-Christer Olsson, EL president and also president of the Swedish professional football league, will tell clubs that it is the champions of mid-ranking Uefa-member leagues like the Scottish Premiership or the Danish Superliga who should qualify for the competition.
Claudius Schaefer, the chief executive of the Swiss Football League and an influential figure among mid-sized leagues told Telegraph Sport: "For us it's clear, it is necessary to allocate three of the extra spots to domestic champions - it's the Champions League. We shouldn't let [the team finishing] fifth, sixth or seventh of the big leagues play there. We need our champions. And I also think we need a country cap, as it is today, of five clubs. I really hope we can convince Uefa and the associations to go in this direction."
The attendance of Uefa general secretary Theodore Theodoridis is indicative of how seriously the governing body is taking the resistance of some of the leading lights among its smaller member associations. Uefa has had to make major concessions to the most powerful clubs in the ECA but that has come at a cost for those historical clubs in less powerful associations. The powerbase of Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, is among the smaller nations of Uefa's 55 members.
The EL will also discuss the likely effect of an expanded Champions League on broadcast revenues for domestic leagues. Those are likely to be cut in order to pay for the expanded Uefa rights packages, thus exacerbating the wealth gap between qualifiers and non-qualifiers which can have a distorting effect on domestic leagues.
Olsson will also call on solidarity payments to be raised to five per cent to compensate non-qualified clubs across Europe from being unable to schedule games on Uefa matchdays. In the 2016 negotiations between Uefa and clubs, solidarity payments were cut to four per cent of gross revenue. In the future the EL wants more equitable share of revenue between the Champions League, Europa League and the new Uefa Europa Conference League that launches next season.
Fans' groups will also have the opportunity to speak about the impact of an expanded Champions League competition.
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