Liverpool FC Forum

by **Reg** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:13 pm

Uefa to expand Euro championship

The European championship is set to be expanded to feature 24 teams from 2016 instead of the current 16, according to Franz Beckenbauer.

A Uefa executive committee meeting on Thursday discussed the issue and will rubber-stamp the decision on Friday.

"Yes for sure it's going to be 24 teams," said Beckenbauer, who is vice-chairman of Uefa's development and technical assistance committee.

"The European Championships will not lose any quality by that."

Former German international Beckenbauer is not a Uefa executive committee member but is a European Fifa executive member who sits in on the meetings as a non-voting observer.

The proposal to expand the competition was put forward by the Scottish Football Association and Football Association of Ireland last year.

The new format will mean fewer countries will have the capacity to host the tournament but it is believed the 53 member nations are unanimously in favour of the change.

"I think the expansion will be better for the game - more teams will have the chance of qualifying and the excitement of the groups will go on for longer," said Scottish FA chief executive Gordon Smith.

"It is disappointing in that it means we will not be able to stage the tournament in the future, and we recognise that will be the case.

"It was a trade-off between trying to stage it or open up the qualification process and we have decided to look at something that helps everybody."

Spain emerged victorious at Euro 2008 earlier this year at a tournament where there was no presence from the home nations.

The expanded version should mean it is easier for Scotland and other home nations to qualify but Smith added: "It will make it easier for other countries such as England who failed to qualify for Euro 2008.

"We didn't do it specifically for that purpose however."

by **JamCar05** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 9:21 am

Don't think this is a too good idea tbh. It will mean that practically half of Europe will qualify (I know it's not exactly half of Europe, but you get my drift). I really think there should be something a bit more special about going to the EC's, i.e. not nearly half the teams in each qualifying group should get to go. And if a team like, say England, can't qualify ahead of two other teams in the qualifying, I honestly don't think they should be there. You want the best of the best at the Euros, and even though I realise England have far better players (at least on paper) than many of the teams that participated in '08, well they just didn't do well enough as a team over 10 or 12 games (can't remember precisely) in the qualifying, and therefore did not deserve to qualify (the same goes for every other team that didn't qualify, it's not especially aimed at England).

by **JoeTerp** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 2:31 pm

busy times at UEFA, they are also rebranding the UEFA Cup into the UEFA Europa League

by **JoeTerp** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 2:35 pm

I am also assuming that now the group stage will only trim the field down to 16 instead of 8. Meaning that some of the 3rd place group teams would get to go through, which IMO puts too much empahsis on the knockout stages. Why not just have a Cup competition between all the nations and be done with it? If they still trim to 8 from 24 instead of 8 from 16 that means only 2/6 2nd place teams would advance, and there would be a lot more pressure in the group stages to win the group.

by **woof woof !** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 4:52 pm

Thinks six groups of four with the group winners and the two best runners up making the final eight would be a good format.

by **account deleted by request** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 5:08 pm

And if that doesn't work maybe they could just give England a bye to the finals so they can cream all the money off our TV companies.

by **JoeTerp** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 5:10 pm

woof woof ! wrote:Thinks six groups of four with the group winners and the two best runners up making the final eight would be a good format.

what I don't like it is that it is likely to come down to one team beating its group minnows by 4 goals while another team beat their own group minnows by 3. And we aren't even talking about the same minnow team, I think you REALLy get punished for drawing a "group of death" in this format.

by **The Manhattan Project** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 6:17 pm

This was Manhattan's idea.

I'm glad UEFA listened to me.

Liverpool FC Forum

Uefa to expand euro championship

Who is online