UEFA Reportedly 'Ready to Accept' Champions League Overhaul Proposal

UEFA is reportedly open to a major overhaul of the Champions League format designed to favour Europe's biggest teams.

According to Chris Wheeler in the Daily Mail, European football's governing body "know the Champions League is not thriving" and is willing to accept a format that would see the continent's major clubs play against each other more regularly.

The potential plans on the table reportedly include a preliminary knockout phase "followed by a 16-team group-stage split into two divisions of eight, playing 14 games home and away," a format which could be installed as early as the 2018-19 season.

The Times' Martyn Ziegler provided a pithy summary of the plan:

The Guardian's Jamie Jackson noted that the idea is being pushed forward by continental clubs concerned "that they are being left behind by huge revenues generated by the Premier League."

Per Wheeler, winning the Champions League is currently worth £50 million, while the English top-flight champions will earn triple that from 2016-17.

Under the new plans, Europe's top leagues—La Liga, the Bundesliga, the Premier League—would be allowed more representatives in the Champions League, but clearly making it into a reduced group stage would be more of a challenge.

Similarly, the new format would likely see the continent's relative minnows—the likes of Belarus' BATE Borisov and Kazakhstan's FC Astana—given less of a chance.

Both BATE and Astana played six matches in this season's Champions League as they qualified for the group stages, but it would become much harder to get into what is effectively two mini leagues under the proposed new format.

Football writer Miguel Delaney compared the proposed format to that of the NFL:

While the bigger teams do attract more people to watching the Champions League, the fact that smaller clubs have a chance to advance is one of the more interesting aspects of the tournament.

The remaining clubs in this season's quarter-final stage are predominantly behemoths—Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Barcelona—but Wolfsburg's inclusion is a pleasant surprise.

Bleacher Report's Dean Jones previously analysed the last eight after the recent draw:

A change does seem to be inevitable given the power and influence of the major clubs in Europe, and there could be a significant upheaval in the offing, the like of which hasn't been seen since the straight knockout European Cup became the Champions League back in 1992.