UEFA is set to launch a third European club competition from the start of the 2021-22 season, European Club Association president Andrea Agnelli has confirmed.
A third UEFA club competition is set to be introduced from the 2021-22 season, the head of the association representing Europe’s biggest clubs says.
European Club Association (ECA) chairman Andrea Agnelli told his members at a meeting in Split the new event would bring the “overall number of clubs” involved in UEFA club competition to 96, the ECA said on Twitter on Tuesday.
“Pending approval of the UEFA executive committee, the ‘green light’ has been given to introduce a third competition, bringing the overall number of clubs to 96, as of the 2021-22 season,” Agnelli said.
Agnelli is also president of Juventus and sits on the UEFA executive committee, occupying one of two seats allocated to club representatives.
At present, Europe has two club competitions – the Champions League, which features 32 teams in the group stage, and the second-tier Europa League, which has 48.
Europe used to have a third competition for winners of domestic cup competitions, known as the Cup Winners’ Cup, but it was abolished in 1999.
Domestic cup winners now enter the Europa League.
The ECA has previously called for more clubs to be involved in European competitions and a “greater certainty of matches” for participating clubs.
Agnelli also repeated his call from last year for a drastic overhaul of the international match calendar, which is drawn up by global soccer body FIFA and allocates dates for national team games.
Gethin Perry
Roar Rookie
Is it just me? Or is 16 a nice round number for a home and away competition for the biggest clubs from England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France? Call it the UEFA Super League. It's that or the clubs go their own way...
Mark
Guest
Another solution in search of a problem
Brian
Guest
Another move by UEFA to completely clog up the calender and eek out more $$$ before FIFA get a chance. First the UEFA Nations League to kill the Confed Cup and reduce friendlies between UEFA and non UEFA members. Now this creation of another Cup no one needs.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
Many moons ago we had the European Cup which only consisted of teams that had won their domestic League competition. Then there was the european cup winners cup which funnily enough only had teams that had won the domestic cup competition. The thirs competition was the UEFA cup where there was a bit of poetic licence. Entry could be through a second cup competition, league standing, fair play award or something similar. Each competition was clerky defined and we did not have the media denegrating any of the competitions or complaining about group stages being boring and “roll on the real part of the competition”. It all made perfect sense. It will be interesting to see how a third competition is structured. Maybe it will consist of teams that survived a relegation scrap by less than 3 points?