Reports | Premier League clubs face losing one Champions League place

The Daily Mail has reported that Premier League clubs could lose one of their automatic Champions League qualifying places and over £25 million of their income from the tournament. The report added that under the proposal developed by the European Leagues Association (ELA), all the top leagues would be limited to just three places from 2021. Their proposal also wants the UEFA to abolish payments based on historical success and make it based purely on current performance.

The four Premier League sides in the 2019/20 Champions League are guaranteed at least £89 million as a result of historical ranking, with Chelsea getting a large portion of that. Almost a third of the £1.75 billion prize money for the season has been based on co-efficient ranking over the last ten years and since the Blues have done relatively well they sit in 5 place as compared to Liverpool’s 10. The Reds may have won the 2018/19 Champions League final and reached the 2017/18 final, but their performances in the seasons prior has affected their place in the ranking. 

ELA president Lars-Christer Olsson added that he believes that historical payments need to be redistributed between all the competing clubs. He also went on to say that re-iterate that all the leading leagues in Europe need to lose one of their automatic spots. That would see the fourth-place team in the Premier League face a two-legged play-off round to reach the group stages from the 2021 competition.

“We are saying we should look into the financial distribution as a whole and our message is that the solidarity has to increase. 20 to 25 per cent of the money has to go to solidarity payments. The historical coefficient would be a good place to look for money. The big leagues are prepared to participate in this discussion for something new if they are treated the same. But if you are giving four positions to the Premier League and taking one away from the Bundesliga then you have a problem,” said Olsson reported the Daily Mail.