beIN SPORTS

By Graham Ruthven (@grahamruthven)

With Liverpool struggling to make the Premier League’s top four Brendan Rodgers took a peculiar decision. The Reds boss rested a number of key players for a Champions League group stage match in an effort to ensure his side would qualify for the competition next season. He played an under strength team to boost his chances of making a tournament they were already in.

It illustrated the regard in which the Champions League is held by Europe’s biggest and best clubs. It is everything to them, with qualification for it considered an accolade in itself - look at how Arsenal have satisfied themselves with a top four finish for the past decade. It’s where everybody wants to be. 

But the top tier of European soccer has become somewhat predictable, with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid sharing the continent’s top prize among themselves for five of the last five years. This was emphasized by Real Madrid's win in Milan at the weekend.

It goes some way to explaining why reform of Europe’s premier club competition has been publicly mooted, with the European Club Association confirming that talks have been talk between its member clubs. The Champions League could be about to change.

However, will it change for the better? Debate over what format would best serve the competition has grown intense, with certain suggestions that it become a closed shop reserved for only the biggest and most prestigious of clubs. Qualification could be eliminated as part of the process, with the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea and the rest of European soccer’s top tier assured of their place every season.

“What would Manchester United argue: did we create soccer or did Leicester create [it]?” said Stillitano, the International Champions Cup figurehead who met with a number of European soccer executives in London earlier this year. “Let’s call it the money pot created by soccer and the fandom around the world. Who has had more of an integral role, Manchester United or Leicester? It’s a wonderful, wonderful story – but you could see it from Manchester United’s point of view, too.”

Tournaments like the International Champions Cup - a pre-season competition hosted across three continents and involving some of the biggest clubs in the game - have set a precedent and it might be difficult for soccer to ignore the self-serving benefits of implementing such a format at the elite level.

Stillitano has faced outright criticism for his comments, but he is merely a mouthpiece for the feelings of some of Europe’s biggest clubs. The current power vacuum in the continental game following the suspension of president Michel Platini has prompted talks across the board over the future of the Champions League, and the game in a wider sense. A pivotal juncture in European soccer history is approaching.

The worry for those who find themselves on the outside looking in - clubs from nations like Scotland, Netherlands, Belgium and Scandinavia - is that a closed route to the Champions League would critically, and permanently, damage soccer in their territories. 

Even in counties like England and Spain - where the Premier League and La Liga are among the most prosperous divisions in the game - there is the question of what impact the absence of a Champions League carrot dangling in front of the nose would have. Would league of such stature wither just as much as peripheral leagues? 

For so many divisions and clubs, the Champions League offers something of a lifeline - both in a financial and wider sense. The trickle down effect of the competition and its rewards would no longer trickle down, leaving those in shade to perish. The problem is that Europe’s elite might not care.