UEFA's second major club tournament, the Europa League, could use some modifications to become a true meritocracy and to raise the profile of the competition in general. Here are a few suggestions.
D. Ray Morton, 26th February 2015.
With this season's Europa League champions guaranteed a spot in next season's Champions League, the status of UEFA's "B" tournament has increased quite a bit. Now clubs like Liverpool and Tottenham and Italian sides who notoriously underachieve at what is perceived as a waste of time, have something more to play for.
There are a few inconsistencies in the format that need ironing out. First of all, the group stage is way too over-bloated. The sheer amount of groups alone is absurd. To remedy this, more pre-qualifier rounds should be scheduled so that the group stages fall in line with the eight group layout of the Champions League.
Secondly, the round of 32 is overkill. To avoid this, do not allow teams that finish third in their Champions League groups to enter the Europa League at all. Why should a team that finishes third in a group get the consolation prize of another tournament rather than, say, teams that get knocked out of the Champions League in the round of 16? This safety net has to go and the competitions must be kept separate.
Finally, in order for teams to truly be awarded on merit, runners up prizes need to go. This means teams that lose domestic cup finals but still get into the competition would be discounted. Should a cup-winning team already qualify for Europe through league position and happen to triumph in a domestic cup, the next spot should go to the next highest league team, not cup final losers.
The same goes for the Europa League final itself. Say, for example, this year's final is Wolfsburg vs. Everton and the German side triumph. Wolfsburg will likely qualify for the Champions League via league position in Bundesliga, therefore that leftover Champions League spot would not go to Everton who will likely finish well off the Premier League European spots. It should be given to a team that did it via performance in their domestic league, Germany rather than England in this example perhaps. How UEFA should decide this is their choice but they have come up with creative ways in the past to give sides European appearances, like the Fair Play award.
Traditionally, the European Cup was the big one but the Europa League's precursor, the UEFA Cup, was not far behind in terms of achievement. Many considered the UEFA Cup harder to win because it would feature several teams from the top leagues and not just one. It has been a long time since UEFA's secondary tournament has been held in such high regard but some functional changes could bring a lot of that excitement back.
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