Well Done UEFA

This year UEFA have changed the qualifying system for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League and I really like what they've done.

Imagine you are a player, an official or a supporter of a team that plays in one of Europe's, with respect, smaller (certainly less wealthy) leagues - Hungary, Romania, Austria, Bulgaria for example.

Over the course of a long - 9 or 10 month - season you overcome your domestic rivals to win your own league and, with that honour, a place in the UEFA Champions League.

In the past such teams then would be seeded to be drawn against the likes of Atletico de Madrid or Arsenal in a play-off for the lucrative group stage: in other words a team that had finished third or fourth in one of the top, wealthy, leagues. Invariably the larger, richer club from the larger, richer league would view this fixture as something as an unwelcome nuisance as their prepared for the start of their domestic league and, equally invariably, they would prove victorious in the play-off.

This year, UEFA divided the Champions into one qualifying route, and the Non-Champions another, completely separate, qualifying route towards entry into the group stage.

As a result of this morning draw we have an excellent chance of seeing some new sides in the competition - Sheriff of Moldova, Ventspils of Latvia, Debrecen of Hungary for instance.

Not only does this have to be fairer for the clubs concerned, it's got to be good for the competition itself. The UEFA Champions League is starting to be just a little predictable: the same teams playing one another - season after season - familiarity breeding contempt.

Ironically these new clubs will, I suspect, struggle at first in the group stage - this isn't a short term change. It'll possibly take 3, 4 or 5 seasons for clubs from these smaller leagues to benefit as their experience grows, and revenues expand.

This system, which as I say I'm in favour of, does mean that a number of the third or fourth place teams from the top leagues - England, Spain, Italy - will miss out. I don't have a problem with this, why should these teams be rewarded for not winning their league?

To illustrate this the runners-up from Scotland - Glasgow Celtic - have been drawn against the team that finished fourth in the English league - Arsenal - with the winner taking a place in the group stage.

I'm quite sure it's just a matter of time before someone from the English or Scottish media claims the system is unfair. I can hear it now as, for instance, Debrecen prepare to play Manchester United, the so-called experts in the TV studio complain 'it's a nonsense that they [Debrecen] are in the competition when the mighty Arsenal/Celtic are not'. Expect a repeat of the xenophobia we witnessed following last seasons Champions League Semi Final second leg at Stamford Bridge. Expect Michael Platini, president of UEFA, to again be branded the enemy of English football.

That's okay, it may take these media types a few seasons of this new system to stop looking inwards all the time and to stop insulting the intelligence of their readers, listenners and viewers at every opportunity.

Well done UEFA.