Option Three: The Expanded Champions League
The most likely, and the most legitimate, of all the proposals and the one that I would say isn’t just a possibility but a stonewall certainty.
It will give keep the power where it belongs, at the top of UEFA, it will cover FIFA by protecting the global football order and clubs can maintain their domestic challenges in a merit-based entry system instead of a closed shop.
Champions League expansion could be done in any of a dozen ways, but the most likely one is the trimming back of qualifiers, and the Groups expanding to six teams.
That’s four extra group stage games and more money all round … four more matches is the upper limit of what national divisions would be able to bear, and it would give us more access because an additional sixteen teams would be able to get into that stage of the competition.
And the thing is, this is a change that could easily be extended to the Europa League and UEFA’s barmy new tournament the Europa Conference.
The expansion of the European club competitions will happen; nothing is surer.
The bigger clubs and the top leagues are at the limit of what they will get away with and UEFA realises it full well.
The money from a six team Group stage would give all the clubs in it greater access to the wealth in the game.
Ten games against top European sides … we could sell that to top players as an alternative to playing in “better leagues” where they’ll only get a handful of games against the very best anyway. All of it would improve our standing.
Football can really grow by doing that.
The top clubs would get richer, but the rest of us would too and the gap between them and us would close little by little.
Not only will this happen, but we should be at the forefront of making it happen … it offers us the best route to a better future, by far.