Champions League: "For 20 years big clubs have threatened to play among themselves" (L-C Olsson, EL)

"For 20 years, from the G14 (lobby of big clubs founded in 2000 and dissolved in 2008) to the ECA, the big clubs have always threatened to secede in order to play among themselves. Consultations between FIFA and UEFA have prevented this from happening," said Lars-Christer Olsson (SWE), president of European Leagues, to the French sports daily L'Équipe on 10/02/2021, regarding the Champions League reform project that UEFA wants to carry out for the 2024-25 seasons and beyond.

This new format devised by UEFA (see below) is a type of league that would comprise 36 clubs divided into four groups of nine. The first four countries in the UEFA ranking (Spain, England, Italy and Germany on 08/02/2021) would keep their four automatically qualified clubs, but France, currently in fifth place, would have three guaranteed places, according to L'Équipe on 06/02/2021.

Each club would play 10 matches (5 at home and 5 away) against opponents from the four different groups according to the "Swiss system" (a hybrid formula between championship and cup created in Zurich in 1889 for the Swiss Chess…