Page 4 - Deal Round Up July 2021

European Super League,
By The Back Door
By
The Editor
Do you remember, it only seems like yesterday, the uproar when six of our top Premier League
clubs, or should I say their owners, attempted to break away from the English Premier League
to form a European Super League. Fans rioted and formed protests and they even managed
to prevent the Manchester United Vs Liverpool match to be postponed when they managed
to get inside the ground and prevented play going ahead, Such was the feeling of disgust.
Then suddenly it became clear that another European competition had been put into place for
the 2021/22 season, called the EUFA Europa Conference League. Originally announced by
EUFA in December 2018, to me this has just crept in under the radar, if you like, and no-one
has raised an eyebrow, probably because Covid intervened to take our minds off it.
So let’s have a look at this top competition!
The UEFA Europa Conference League will be the third UEFA club competition and run
alongside both the Champions League and Europa League. Listen to this; the idea behind it
is to give more clubs a taste of European football, even those from countries struggling to
qualify for the Champions League or the Europa League and .........this is a good one, there’s
a spot up for grabs for English clubs too! Does that seem like a cheap bribe!
So, Chelsea, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester City & United, Tottenham and West Ham, all
qualified for the three European competitions. That is not much different from Arsenal, Chel-
sea, Liverpool, Manchester City & United and Tottenham, the clubs that attempted the break-
away, all of whom have been heavily fined by the way.
It seems to me, unless I am missing something, that the powers that be are compromising
quality with this new competition just to establish the principal of staging more European
games, to get supporters used to the idea, but won’t that ultimately have an adverse effect
on the Premier League in this country. Perhaps that is not important, perhaps the important
thing is the millions of pounds that will be generated through the increase in TV rights, but
will any of that find its way to the ‘grass roots’
game that is, after all what produces the super
stars of the future.
The Europa League and Europa Conference
League fixtures will be on Thursdays, with kick-
offs at 5.45pm and 8pm and will start in 2021/22
and will continue at least until 2024. There will
be a first, second and third qualifying rounds
and then a Play-Off round prior to the Group
Stage. The English team, Tottenham, will enter The Europa Conference League final will be
at the Play-Off round which will be two-legged played on May 25 in Tirana, Albania
on August 19th and 26th. The Premier League will have started on the 14th.
There will be eight Groups and the winners will automatically go through to the last sixteen.
Additional knock-out round play-offs will then be played before the round of sixteen between
the eight group runners-up and the third ranked teams of the Europa League groups. Qual-
ifying round dates
Phase First Leg Second Leg
First Qualifying July 8th July 15th
Second Qualifying (Scottish teams enter) July 22nd July 29th
Third Qualifying August 5th August 12th

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