Rudi Völler has sharply criticised the planned reform of the Champions League by UEFA. In the run-up to the meetings of the members of the European Club Association scheduled for Thursday and Friday on Malta, the managing director of Bayer Leverkusen did not hold back his aversion and also dares a conflict with Bayern boss Rummenigge and BVB boss Watzke.
“Terrible and deadly”, Völler called the proposal by ECA boss and Juventus president Andrea Agnelli, according to which from 2024 only four of the 32 starting places in the premier class will be awarded via the placement in the national leagues. 24 teams would be seeded by last year’s participation, four other teams would qualify via the Europa League.
“This is the death sentence of football when you no longer have to qualify for European competitions,” Völler told the dpa. According to the Bayer managing director, anyone who would want to do so would have to be “idiotic”. He hopes “that everyone will come to their senses.
With his harsh vocabulary, Völler also went on a confrontation course with Bavaria’s CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and BVB Managing Director Hans-Joachim Watzke. Both had recently approached the Agnelli course in their statements.
“This reform of the Champions League or Super League is coming anyway. We must now try to pack in as much of our German interests as possible, which corresponds to German feelings,” Watzke declared in May. Watzke is said to have argued similarly on 15 May in the course of the league’s general meeting.
“Aki, don’t talk such a crap”, Völler countered already on this day when the 36 clubs from the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga spoke out against Agnelli’s reform proposals.
In contrast to Watzke, Rummenigge always positioned himself alternately for and against the reform. In his last interview with Der Spiegel, he asked why something had to be changed. The Champions League is “by far the best and most difficult to win competition in the world”, envied by European clubs around the world.
The depth of the rift in European top-class football caused by the Agnelli project is shown by the disagreement in the Primera Division. While Real Madrid and FC Barcelona support the plans, the rest of the league, led by Atletico, have distanced themselves from the top clubs in a letter of protest. Only in the Premier League was the reform proposal unanimously rejected.
And resistance to the Agnelli plans is growing. For example, FIFA President Gianni Infantino has been critical on several occasions – but also driven by his own interests. A European super league would compete with its new top product, a bloated club world championship with 24 teams, both sportively and economically.
Critical voices are also increasingly coming from politics. France’s President Emmanuel Macron intervened in the debate. It was “not a good idea to sacrifice the viability of our model for the benefit of some at European level,” Macron had explained. A statement that UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin was angry with: “The President’s speech is a clear interference of politics in sport, which surprises us very much”.
