With more rule changes in favour of the rich, is it fair to call it the 'Champions' League anymore?

It has been over 20 years since the identity of Europe’s premier club competition was changed forever. August 7, 1996, marked the start of the fifth season of the Champions League and last season of the tournament in which the participants were strictly champions of their respective league.

Borussia Dortmund won their first European Cup/Champions League title at the end of the season. Nineteen years on, the Champions League has seen only one first-time winner – a ruble-fueled Chelsea triumph in 2012.

The tournament would expand to 32 teams later, but has largely seen the Champions League become increasingly skewed in favour of the topmost leagues in Europe, almost to the point where the name feels like a misnomer.

Changes in format

It was announced on Friday that the top four teams from Europe’s top four leagues will be guaranteed a spot in the group stage of the Champions League from the 2018-'19 season. This will mean that half of the teams playing in the group stages will come from only four leagues, less than 10% of Europe’s 54 leagues.

The announcement came amid rumours of a proposed breakaway league, involving the top teams in Europe. The other big change is the setting-up of a new company, jointly owned by UEFA and the European Clubs Association (ECA) for the administration of the Champions League and the Europa League.

This will ensure that the clubs deal directly with UEFA and not through their national football associations. While UEFA’s new revenue distribution model ensures an increase in payments to clubs who fail to get through the qualifying phase, teams with bigger TV contracts will get an increased share of the competition’s revenues.

This move would be most beneficial to the Italian Serie A, currently standing in fourth spot in UEFA’s country coefficient table, which currently has two spots in the group stage and one in the playoffs awarded to it. This would effectively double the country’s quota, as Italian clubs have lost the playoff tie in five of the last six seasons.

In the present format, four spots go to the top three countries in the coefficients table – currently Spain, England, Germany, with three spots going to the next three nations.

Limited to a few

The Champions League, heading into its 24th edition has hosted clubs from 32 countries; 22 others are still waiting for their first participant. Russia’s FC Rostov and English champions Leicester City will become the 134th and 135th clubs to participate in the competition.

UEFA’s new move is in line with the expectations of broadcasters, whose hold over the game has become increasingly significant as TV revenues continue to dwarf all other streams of income.

Spain are the most successful nation in terms of qualifying for the group stages with 79 individual campaigns, Real Madrid and Barcelona holding the joint record for most number of appearances, 21, with Porto from Portgual.

Only 11 of UEFA’s 54 constituent leagues however, have averaged one entrant or more every season in the competition’s history. Since the competition was opened up to non-champions, 34 of UEFA’s members have seen five entries or lesser in 20 years, lower than an average of one entry in four years.

Dominance of the big leagues

The last format revision came at the start of the 2009 season, prior to which a maximum of two teams from any association were guaranteed a spot in the group stage – the second-placed finishers in the top six leagues would directly go into the main draw, along with the champions of the top ten associations.

The 2009-'10 season saw the clubs finishing third in associations 1-3 also get guaranteed entry into the group stages, thus furthering the divide between the top few leagues and the chasing pack.

The top five leagues – England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain – have stretched their dominance over the knockout stages, as they have contributed to seven of the eight quarter-finalists in each of the last 17 seasons but one.

The biggest victims of this cartelisation have been Dutch clubs, which have won the European Cup/Champions League six times, but haven’t reached a quarter-final since PSV Eindhoven in 2007. Eindhoven were also the last team from outside the top five leagues to make a semi-final in 2005.

The top three in particular have done really well for themselves, as there have been 11 instances in the last 13 seasons where four teams from one country have made it to the knockout stages.

The four in 2008 and 2009 went one step further, and qualified for the quarter-finals. Three of those teams went to qualify for the semi-finals, in what was clearly a golden period for English clubs.

Clubs from the same country have contested the final six times in the competition’s history, and in three of the last four seasons.

The threat to Europe’s lower leagues finally seems to have materialized. Love of the football neutral seems to have taken a backseat to the world of broadcasters and sponsors.

As the beautiful game becomes increasingly limited to a rich few, one of the reasons that makes the game so endearing – a sense of the upset – is on the path of marginalization. The game’s proletariat are an endangered species, and they’re being hunted again.