Wilson: New Champions League format a ‘betrayal of football’
Sports Illustrated journalist Jonathan Wilson has said that the new Champions League format – with changes that will be awful to Rangers – is “the betrayal of football”.
In a strongly worded long-form piece in SI, Wilson expounds on why it’s such a terrible development for the game.
He said, “There will be more games, more money guaranteed to the elite clubs and more that’s focused on everything except the sanctity of sport and competition.”
The new format contains a controversial coefficient that will favour elite clubs at the expense of clubs like Rangers.
Jim White and Simon Jordan have both slammed it and said that it is “preposterous” that the team finishing seventh in the Premier League should have preferential terms of entry over the champions of Scotland.
There was a reprieve last week when the new format wasn’t voted through but Wilson has said, “whoever actually is in charge, nobody expects anything other than agreement on the adoption of the Swiss model.”
He added: “The Champions League will have become an autonomous Super League in all but name, and there will not even be the pretence that Europe’s premier competition is being run for the good of the game, or for anything other than enriching the already extremely rich.
“So opposed are the superclubs to any sense of merit, that the plan is for two of the four new places created in the pre-knockout phase to go to those sides with the highest coefficient who haven’t already made it: more revenue in perpetuity, another safety blanket against running the club so badly you fail to qualify despite all the advantages available to you.”
Betrayal is the right word
The Premier League were an unlikely ally for Rangers last week and they are against the controversial coefficient.
However, according to Wilson, it’s only a matter of time before a fudge is found that will see the elite clubs smiling.
It does bring into question what sport actually is in the modern age.
Sport is supposed to be individuals or teams fighting it out on a level playing field with the rewards going to the best teams.
Money is ruining the concept and the new Champions League puts a nail in the coffin of fairness.
The elite European competition is called the Champions League. The clue is in the name.
If they vote these changes through they should be forced to rename it.
It’s going to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of all Rangers fans and let’s not forget we’re going to spend June and July trying to qualify for the competition after winning the Scottish Premiership at a canter.
Meanwhile, elite clubs finishing off the top of the table waltz straight through to the group stage – and yet still they want more.
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