In a bid to make international football more attractive, UEFA is a looking at a Nations League competition.
The idea, floated at executive committee meetings that preceded aUefa meeting in Dubrovnik last month, would see Uefa using existing dates for friendlies in the international calendar to launch a new league involving all 54 member nations.
Uefa sources have told the Guardian that the idea was one of several floated at the meeting as part of a discussion about how to improve the attractiveness of international football from 2018 onwards. The Uefa executive committee will now examine the idea in more detail before deciding whether to adopt it.
The new concept, first revealed by Norwegian paper Dagbladet, would see all Uefa's members divided into a series of perhaps nine divisions based on their recent results, with promotion and relegation following each round of matches.
The winner of the first division would be Uefa's Nations League champion and win a substantial prize, with the bottom team in each division being relegated in favour of the winner of the tier below.
The Norwegian FA president, Yngve Hallen, who sits on UEFA's national committee for international tournaments, said: "It is true that a series of games is one of the models being discussed."
The discussions are taking place against a backdrop of concern that the qualifying campaigns for the expanded European Championships from 2016 will prove less attractive because there will be less jeopardy.
Does that mean Mr. Platini's plan to change the qualifiers didn't go well with the member associations?
I'm all for it (they do that in Rugby).
ReplyDeleteI think that 4 tiers are better:
1. one group of 6 teams - bottom 2 playoffs for relegation.
2. two groups of 6 teams - in each winner playoffs for promotion, 2 playoff for relegation.
3. four groups of 6 teams - in each winner playoffs for promotion, 2 playoff for relegation.
4. two groups of 6 teams - in each winner and runner up playoff for promotion.
I agree with this more. Though we'd like to see England vs Germany and Spain vs NL more often, it doesn't make sense to perpetually see, say Scotland vs Finland. If there are 6-team tiers with only one relegated/promoted, many teams are bound to be kept in the same division and always face the same opponents. There have to be draws after every cycle that will change the groups in a tier.
ReplyDeleteFeels like UEFA wants another cash cow instead of letting NTs experiment against the opponent of their choice. Relegation/promotion adds a competitive element which will have an impact on the roster of NTs (e.g. starving young prospects in favor of safer "veterans"), tactical choices, etc. Avoiding extra pressure is better for the development of young players ... if this idea is implemented, the only "safe" option to introduce youngsters will be qualifiers vs minnows.
ReplyDeleteNot playing friendlies against teams from other confeds is also a drawback. UEFA is almost a closed circuit as is ... friendlies were one of the few times that we could see how we fared against non UEFA teams. Isn't worldwide promotion and development of football one of the core principles of FIFA?
Guessing this is nothing more than Blatter and Platini going at it. Election time and Platini needs a few headlines ... he'll never beat Blatter in pandering to all the confeds.
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