UEFA said they need Celtic – What Celtic now need from them in Champions League reform after ESL shambles | OneFootball

It’s clearly been a scary few days for UEFA as they faced the prospect of some of their biggest teams breaking away and trying to start their own league.

Ultimately the ESL now looks doomed to failure and teams are starting to withdraw, but let’s not forget that earlier today the President made a desperate appeal to say how much UEFA needs Celtic in their competitions.

You can be sure that the fall-out from this will be that these 12 teams seek Champions League guarantees and more money that just kills the competition even further, so let’s hope that the likes of Celtic and Ajax hold Ceferin to his word.

The Champions League has a fundamental flaw in its name as it’s impossible for most Champions to actually get into the main part of the competition, so you really see the 4th best teams from leagues play each other and it’s quickly becoming stale.

One of the main talking points of the competition is the money that’s on offer and regular qualification for Celtic would be huge for their finances, and it would allow them to grow and be in a better position to compete year after year.

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The current setup is designed to eliminate that outcome as much as possible, so we need to see a situation where it does return to the champions of all the big leagues getting access to it.

The current format means that most inclusions are a formality and nothing is earned, so surely both domestic and European competition would be greatly enhanced if places were limited and teams had to fight and claw their way to get back into it each year.

Suddenly it becomes more important because of the work that it’s taken to qualify, and if we allowed a greater variety of teams then the wealth would be better distributed and the competition would be greatly enhanced.

What Celtic need to see is the champions of Scotland getting into the group stages every year – obviously that would be the Rangers next season, but it adds an extra edge to the title race and an added incentive for each club to push as hard as they can.

Most fans are unlikely to have the faith that this will happen as the authorities care far more about money than they do abut genuine competition in the game, but UEFA now have to make changes to benefit the “smaller” nations too after those comments this morning when it looked like it was all falling apart.