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Proposed reforms to UEFA’s Champions League are threatening to rip apart European football, with a number of clubs willing to leave the competition, and even their domestic leagues, should the continent’s elite push ahead with “greedy, self-serving” plans to streamline the world’s most lucrative club football tournament.

could see an extra, seeded knockout round added to the Champions League in an effort to weed out smaller, less ‘glamorous’ clubs.

The plan is to then move into two groups of eight teams, largely from Europe’s elite, who would play out the next phase with higher TV viewing figures and generating more revenue for the competition.

But after consulting a raft of clubs across Europe who would be sidelined by this plan, Mirror Sport can reveal that:

Those negatively affected could be willing to break away from the Champions League and form their own similar multinational competition.

Clubs are also examining the legality of UEFA insisting they play in their domestic leagues, with leading sides from several nations examining the possibility of a multinational league with far greater television rights and sponsorship deals sold around the world.

(Image: AFP/Getty)

That clubs are willing to take such dramatic steps speaks volumes for the anger in Europe’s ‘smaller’ leagues after discovering that the richest clubs feel they are being inconvenienced by playing lesser-known clubs who bring little revenue to the competition.

is a game cited as an example of why the Champions League’s group stage is currently bloated, having attracted low viewing figures across the continent.

But the reforms would almost irreversibly damage the finances of national champions that rely on the competition to boost their coffers.

(Image: David Ramos)

In response, clubs spoken to in Scandinavia, Western Europe and Central Europe by Mirror Sport revealed that they were unanimously unhappy with the proposals and many were considering drastic action in response.

Nearly every club spoken to by MirrorSport admitted that they would be forced to analyse the pros and cons of leaving the Champions League, while some confessed that informal conversations to that end had already taken place between club chiefs in recent years.

One club president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for now, felt that the Champions League’s attempts at ‘streamlining’ were “inevitable” and driven by “greedy, self-serving” clubs.

(Image: Alexander Hassenstein)

Mirror Sport understands that while these proposals have come to light as a result of the Premier League’s richest clubs and Bayern Munich attempting to get what they see as a more ‘fair’ deal for the financial riches they bring the Champions League, no formal proposal has been made to UEFA yet.

And this was echoed by Niclas Carlnen, CEO of Malmo, who this year were paired with Real Madrid in the group stages:

“In the recent meetings and discussions I haven’t received any new formal suggestion of a new format for the UCL and because of that I will only comment on our general opinion on the matter.

(Image: Angel Martinez/Real Madrid via Getty)

“We are working to close the growing gap between the bigger clubs and the smaller. On step is the new distribution between UCL and UEL and we need to move in that direction and not the other way around.”

It was a noted by the majority of clubs consulted by the Mirror Sport that the latest developments would take the competition in a completely different direction to Michel Platini’s time as UEFA president.

The Frenchman made it easier for domestic champions to access the competition at the expense of fourth-placed sides in bigger leagues by separating them in qualification, but many officials were surprised that UEFA would consider making such swingeing changes while the confederation’s leadership was still up in the air.

(Image: PA)

Significantly, senior executives at more than one club told Mirror Sport that, should these changes be ratified, there could be a raft of teams ready to leave their domestic leagues in search of their own riches.

FC Copenhagen CEO Anders Horsholt was willing to go on record in telling Mirror Sport that, if Europe’s elite would ruin competition in search of more money, then this was a serious consideration for clubs like them too:

“F.C. Copenhagen are always looking for clubs with a similar point of view and similar concerns to our own. After a lot of problems in UEFA – and FIFA – maybe the time has come to take a serious look at how the leagues overall are structured in Europe.

“It might be the time to look in to whether the national federations and UEFA should even hold the rights for organising the leagues. One could argue that the current way of organising football is distorting competition for clubs in countries like Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Scotland, Poland and Norway, since we can only compete within a certain geography and its difficult to find any other industries with a similar structure.

“Of course UEFA would like a status quo in order to keep the moneyflow going through them but the question is if this is the best solution in the future for football."