CL extended to 64 teams?

[HangTime]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20523405

Guess there are too many big clubs missing out these days so they need to expand the cash cow. No disrespect but 5 Scottish teams in the CL is taking the mick a bit.
I'd imagine the number of teams qualifying for European competition will remain roughly the same, and maybe the Europa League is deemed to have been a failure in terms of the commercial revenue it generates (and consequently how seriously some teams take it), but it makes a bit of a mockery of the "Champions" League moniker.

Domestically giving a CL place to the League Cup winners could raise the profile of that competition a bit, although currently teams playing in Europe get an extra bye which seems a bit self-perpetuating.

 

[HangTime]

TV companies will want the games played over more than two nights for sure. They could maybe consider an alternate weeks approach although that could cause havoc with domestic schedules I guess.

Then again I suppose it depends on the structure, i.e. how many qualifying rounds there are, maybe the end result will still be 8 groups of four. Not sure how that would pan out though because currently at least clubs have the Europa League to fall back on, if they are going to be denied that then UEFA will need to guarantee more games somehow.

Some might argue that UEFA should start putting more pressure on local assocations to shrink the size of their top divisions, I remember around 10 years ago UEFA said they wanted 16 teams but the likes of Spain and England have failed to action this. This reduction in the number of domestic games would then free up some fixtures so we could have 8 groups of 6 in the CL (10 group games), 32 automatic qualifiers, remaining 32 clubs have a playoff for the final 16 places.

 

[HangTime]

Would be awesome if it became straight knockout (2 legs) again although I can't see that happening from a financial perspective. As a former work colleague of mine used to say about the European Cup "If you get Real Madrid in the first round - hard luck"

 

[HangTime]

in a straight knock out tourney, he who survives to the end is the best of the best.

I disagree, IMO a league format is a better way of determining the best of the best because you don't have to play everyone in a knockout tournament. The result is influenced by the 'luck of the draw' in terms of what opponents you are drawn against e.g. if you recall a couple of years back when somebody analysed Chelsea's FA Cup draws they seemed to have a fairly good number of lower league opponents.

If a knockout format is deemed to show the best of the best then why is the League title held in higher esteem than the League Cup?

 

[HangTime]

disagree

for European Cup there would be no easy draws as it would simply be a straight K.O tourney of all the league champions, so each team in the draw is the best team from the top league for its country.

Disagree.

Permitting only domestic league champions does not in itself guarantee quality or fairness of draws; if you get drawn against the champions of Spain, England etc that will be much tougher than the champions of say Denmark, Hungary or whatever.

A league structure, and I'm talking a proper league not mini-groups, is fundamentally a better measure of quality in my book than a knockout competition where you can get an easy ride in the early rounds.
You only have to go back to the European Cup in 1992, first round, to see what kind of mismatches there were - two 10-0 aggregate wins, an 8-0 and a 7-1. Whereas some other teams had to scrape through on away goals.