The new format was born
The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has approved the decision to establish a new tournament called the European Conference League (ECL). ECL is considered a level 3 tournament in the old continent, after the UEFA Champions League (UCL) and UEFA Europa League (UEL).
UEFA clearly states that the purpose of creating an ECL will make the European playground closer to many clubs, especially those with less competition in each major tournament such as the Premier League, La Liga, ...
Although ECL will be announced, UEFA has only revealed one thing about the format of each National Championship (the tournaments are not clear) with only 01 representative. The position, ranking or achievement that helps these clubs participate in ECL is still a secret.
The biggest headache for the organizers at the moment is the ECL competition time. It must have been during the football season, around August of the previous year to May of the following year. However, UCL and UEL played in midweek, how is the time for ECL to enter, in the context that teams still play national championships at the weekend?
Is the plan to increase the time of the national football championship season feasible? That is, ECL will be allowed to play separately for many weeks, without touching tournaments in the UEFA system. But so, if there is a World Cup, EURO or major tournaments at the national team level in the year, the gathering schedule is very urgent and causes overload.
Is ECL playing around the time when UCL and UEL are temporarily absent feasible? If only considering the club level, this is reasonable. But what if there are qualifying rounds for major tournaments at the national championship or international friendlies? Usually, UCL, UEL or national championships are temporarily closed to make way for those matches.
In short, the time and method of organizing ECL are still very difficult and there cannot be an immediate solution.
Every team wants to "eat a feast"
When everyone participates in a game together, if there are no economic benefits, no one is free to contribute.
The UEL champion will go straight to the UCL group stage. This can be applied to ECL (1 ticket to the UEL group stage or higher is the UCL preliminary round). This is considered an extremely effective shortcut, helping the ambition to sit on the "big tray" of the continent of mid-level teams no longer be a fairy-tale dream.
When UEFA decides to launch a new tournament, they are forced to discuss with member federations for opinions. That opinion must also be approved by clubs in each country. And when everyone nodded together, a new playground was formed.
Just counting staying in the Premier League, the teams at the bottom of the rankings also have hundreds of millions of pounds in television and image copyright and enough to make a profit. If a team that is outside the group playing in the European Cup suddenly has a ticket to the Champions League every year, it will be a historic turning point for them personally and bring in a huge amount of money.
And from a technical perspective, playing in the European Cup is always more "opposite" than the prospect of just being a mid-level team in a country year after year.
The establishment of the European Conference League will meet the wishes of many small teams, just like the way the World Cup or EURO increase the number of teams. The only concern for fans is that they may be saturated with information and interest when there are too many tournaments and not sure if the quality is high.
