Celtic could be affected by UEFA’s new European football proposals. According to Eurosport, the governing body wants to add more clubs to the existing European setup and make it into a league format. Head of the European Leagues, Lars-Christer Olsson, also revealed that UEFA want to add promotion and relegation to the new system.
Olsson said there was “not a big difference” between UEFA’s proposal and the earlier suggestion made by Juventus president Andrea Agnelli.
“There are ideas about promotion and relegation in the system,” Olsson said. “It’s a different system from the one we have today.
“The total picture is that there should be more clubs involved, for example, so we have to analyse what effect that is going to have.”
Uefa will update members in Hungary next week with changes not announced until 2020.
How would Celtic be affected by any change?
On the face of it, the addition of new teams sounds like good news for Celtic. As with most UEFA matters though, the devil will be in the detail. So many questions are yet to be answered about the new proposal. Like, will certain teams be guaranteed a place in the tournament every year? Or, will teams from smaller nations like Scotland still have to qualify?
One things for sure, change is coming. The European Club Association want a closed league system featuring the continent’s major sides. UEFA are likely to oppose this but only to a certain extent. They may have to compromise to avoid losing their big teams completely.
Things should become clearer in the next year, but for now it’s all just speculation.
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
