August 24 – UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin says the single-game knockout format used in the Champions League and Europa League from the quarter-final onwards this season has been such a success that it will not be ruled out henceforth.
UEFA made the switch because of the effects of Covid-19 and the reduced time frame needed to complete the tournaments but Ceferin says he has received nothing but praise for the concept.
“I have to say that this system of one match seems more interesting to me than the other system with two legged matches,” Ceferin told The Associated Press ahead of Sunday’s Champions League final.
“It’s one of the interesting things that was brought by this pandemic. We had to do a system like that. We had to play this way, but at the end, we see it’s a very interesting system.
“Now, it’s quite complicated to place a final eight in the calendar. But we saw that people want exciting matches, that in one match, every team can beat every team in Champions League or the Europa League. So it’s something to consider for the future … I think in September or October, we have to start to seriously speak.”
“The calendar is very complicated, players play almost 365 days per year. So we have to see how we do it, if we do it. It’s an interesting format, which we didn’t think about before and now it’s somewhere here in our mind.”
Ceferin told Reuters that if the system remained in place, so would one city hosting the entire finale.
“If we would play this system then, but we haven’t discussed with anyone its just an idea, we would play in one city. If you play in one city, you can have a week of football or something like that. But it is far too early to think about it.
“We have seen it as a big success and the viewership over TV has been huge, maybe it also good because it is August and people are at home, some of them at least, but interesting, interesting tournament.”
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