There will be no English sides on show when Europe’s elite club competition, the Champions League, resumes this week with the first legs of its semi-finals.
The Premier League’s sole team still standing across the three European competitions this season are Aston Villa, who host Olympiacos of Greece at the same stage in UEFA’s third-tier tournament, the Europa Conference League, on Thursday.
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After Manchester City and Arsenal were knocked out in the Champions League quarter-finals — and Liverpool and West Ham United followed them in the last eight of the Europa League — it led to grumbling among Premier League executives about the domestic schedule.
With England almost certain to miss out on a fifth Champions League spot in next season’s debut of a revamped format — via the coefficient rankings that are awarded to the two best-performing leagues this campaign (Italy and, very likely, Germany) — some English clubs have argued they should get more help from their domestic top flight when playing in Europe.
This bubbled to the surface when LFP, the governing body for France’s Ligue 1, postponed the domestic matches for its teams playing in Europe to give them extra rest. They have done so again for the semi-finals involving Paris Saint-Germain (in the Champions League tomorrow — Wednesday) and Marseille (in the Europa League on Thursday).
However, these English frustrations have led to eyerolls in some quarters across Europe given Premier League sides earn significantly more than their rivals on the continent and have the resources to acquire the squad depth most non-Premier League teams can only dream of. Also, at least one English club has reached the Champions League final in five of the past six seasons.
So what conversations have been happening, do the Premier League teams have a point and what’s been the reaction in France to their new approach?
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“The priority in scheduling should be to accommodate English clubs competing in Europe.”
This was the view of a senior source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, close to Villa, England’s sole remaining representative in Europe this season.
They felt this was even more the case in their Europa Conference League quarter-final earlier this month as they faced Lille, fourth in Ligue 1, who had no game on the weekend between the tie’s two legs. By contrast, Villa faced Arsenal at the Emirates on the intervening Sunday, a match they won 2-0. They then defeated Lille on penalties four days later.
Despite them progressing to the final four, however, the Villa source said more should be done to protect English teams in Europe.
They said the Premier League is responsible for the poor performance of English clubs in Europe this season because of the scheduling — particularly for those in the Europa and Conference Leagues, with the tight Thursday to Sunday turnaround that involves.
“The result will be the loss of a fifth spot in the Champions League,” they told The Athletic. “Three days with an overseas flight is worse than Atalanta (who played on the Monday against Verona in Serie A before facing Liverpool at home three days later) even. The Premier League can make sure four days before critical games are guaranteed.”
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Villa made contact with the Premier League earlier this season and made observations as to how it could help English teams manage the fixture list but did not go so far as to make an official request for a domestic match to be moved. They cited last month’s game at home to Tottenham. The fixture was put forward to a 1pm kick-off on Sunday — at the request of the police — giving Villa less time to recover from their goalless draw away to Ajax of the Netherlands less than 72 hours earlier. Villa’s suggestion was to move their meeting with Spurs back, to the Monday night, affording additional rest between fixtures.
Speaking anonymously to protect relationships, a senior figure at West Ham — who were knocked out by Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League quarter-finals — agreed English clubs needed more help but said the problem was finding the slots to play any matches that get postponed.
They described the Thursday-Sunday routine as a “killer”, adding: “It’s so sad the Premier League has only one team in the last 12 in Europe — and that’s in the worst competition.”
The backdrop to this comes amid talk of the increasingly congested football calendar and the growing demands placed on players.
After squeezing past Chelsea 1-0 in the FA Cup semi-finals on April 20, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola vented his fury at the fixture schedule. Three days earlier, they had lost to Real Madrid in a Champions League quarter-final that went to extra time and penalties.
“It’s unacceptable to let us play today,” he said after the Saturday evening game with Chelsea at Wembley. “It’s impossible, for the health of the players. It’s not normal. It’s unacceptable. One-hundred-and-twenty minutes, the emotions of Madrid, the way we lose, honestly. I know this country is special (with the FA Cup) but it’s for the health of the players. I don’t understand how we survived today.”
Pep Guardiola was not happy that Manchester City had to play the FA Cup semi-final on Saturday after facing Real Madrid on Wednesday.#BBCFootball #FACup pic.twitter.com/YaAKsLwTfG
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) April 20, 2024
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was similarly critical when they had to play Wolves away on the Saturday night last week after losing 1-0 to Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena in a Champions League quarter-final’s second leg on the Wednesday.
The schedule will be eased slightly following this month’s controversial decision to scrap FA Cup replays from next season, although FIFA’s expanded Club World Cup, featuring 32 teams, starts next summer and clubs continue to sign up to lucrative overseas pre-season and post-season tours. For example, Tottenham play Newcastle in a friendly in Melbourne, Australia on May 22, just three days after the final day of the Premier League season.
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One possible solution — which was driven by Liverpool and Manchester United as part of ‘Project Big Picture’ in 2020 — was to reduce the number of teams in the Premier League from 20 to 18 and scrap both the League Cup and Community Shield. The following year, Andrea Agnelli, then the chairman of the European Club Association, floated the same 18-club Premier League idea when discussing the proposals for the new Champions League format. Yet that idea won very little support from clubs outside the ‘Big Six’ and was roundly rejected.
However, one league that has downsized to 18 teams is Ligue 1, which this season followed the lead of Germany’s Bundesliga, where the top flight has had that many clubs since the 1960s. French football had already scrapped the Coupe de la Ligue — its second domestic cup competition — in 2020.
In response, the Premier League said its hands were tied and it had to factor the new Club World Cup and the expanded Champions League format into an already busy calendar.
It said it tries to help its teams, particularly from the semi-finals onwards, by affording more rest, while it does not put teams on a Saturday lunchtime kick-off if they played in the Champions League on the Wednesday night before. It said England had a proud tradition of 20 teams in the top flight (having dropped from 22 for the 1995-96 season) and two club competitions, which would remain in place.
On Friday, Premier League chief executive Richard Masters criticised FIFA for its lack of consultation over the revamped Club World Cup, adding that the packed football calendar had reached a “tipping point”. That new 32-team tournament takes place between June 15 and July 13 in the United States next summer.
FIFA points out this larger Club World Cup is only being played every four years, not annually as happened with its smaller predecessor, and will only impact Chelsea and Manchester City from the Premier League in that inaugural 2025 edition.
On the continent, leagues have appeared more willing to help teams who are competing in Europe.
Like England, Portugal still has two domestic cup competitions, but its Primeira Liga (another top division made up of 18 teams) often grants its big three — Sporting Lisbon, Benfica and Porto — a weekend off before big Champions League matches.
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Spain, Germany and Italy, who all only need to fit in one domestic cup, regularly use a Friday night slot for the team playing a Champions League fixture the following Tuesday.
For example, Real Madrid’s match in 20-team La Liga against Real Sociedad, originally set for the Saturday of last weekend, was moved to the previous evening to give the Madrid players extra rest before their trip to Bayern Munich for the first leg of a Champions League semi-final tonight (Tuesday).
That said, there has been frustration, too.
Roma, who face Leverkusen in the Europa League semi-finals on Thursday, issued a complaint to Serie A after their match against Udinese on April 14 was suspended when Roma defender Evan Ndicka collapsed on the pitch during the second half, and Serie A decided the final 18 minutes would be played last Thursday, April 25.
Roma argued this put them at a disadvantage against Leverkusen because they faced Bologna on the Monday, April 22, finished the Udinese game three days later and then had to travel to an away match against Napoli (kicking off at 6pm local time — 5pm BST, 12pm ET) on Sunday, before their semi-final’s first leg at the Stadio Olimpico.
In a statement, Roma said: “AS Roma with its results and four consecutive European semi-finals contributed to UEFA ranking and thus five slots for Italian teams in the next edition of the Champions League, like few others. Despite that, President Casini (president of Serie A) took an unfair decision against AS Roma forcing us to face Bayer 04 Leverkusen at disadvantage, which represents an unclear step backward for the entire Italian football system.”
To try and boost its teams’ chances in Europe — which in turn would help grow the profile of Ligue 1 — LFP gave PSG, Marseille and Lille a rest before their European ties. Success in Europe is viewed as especially important given the LFP’s efforts to land a high fee for the league’s broadcasting rights and with star attraction Kylian Mbappe almost certain to leave PSG at the end of the season.
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France also still has an outside chance of securing a fifth Champions League spot in next season’s 36-team tournament — it needs PSG and Marseille to win the Champions League and Europa League respectively. Both those clubs have no domestic match on the weekend between the two legs of their semi-finals.
This has been met with a mixed response in France.
Lorient, who were set to play PSG on the weekend sandwiched between their quarter-final games, said they will “always show solidarity with French clubs competing in European competition”. Francesco Farioli, manager of Nice, the latest side to have their fixture moved to benefit the French champions, agreed. He said: “It’s a pleasure for French football. Two French teams competing with a possibility of playing a final. It’s OK to do everything to help them.”
Jean-Pierre Caillot, president of Reims, said: “There is a reality, which is that we have been saying over and over for years that we want to exist on the European scene, that we need a good UEFA index. And when we are faced with the situation, I think we should not look at our personal interest. For the interest of football in general, its ecosystem, clubs have to adapt. That’s exactly how I see things.”
However, others have not been so receptive. Jean-Michel Roussier, Le Havre’s president, was furious when a rotated PSG side only drew with his club’s relegation rivals Clermont the Saturday before the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final against Barcelona. “I’ve constructed a text to send to Ligue 1 to express how I feel seeing PSG make fun of our league,” he said. “They’re taking the p**s out of people.”
With the fixtures rejigged to free up the calendar for the French teams in Europe, Le Havre now have the prospect of facing PSG, Nice and Marseille in three of their last four matches as they fight to stay in Ligue 1. They started that run with a 3-3 draw against PSG at the Parc des Princes on Saturday.
Nantes manager, and former PSG player, Antoine Kombouare also spoke out against the changes. “I think the league should protect the league; European competition comes after,” he said.
And that, ultimately, is at the heart of an ongoing debate that will continue to play out.
(Top image: City were beaten by Madrid on penalties in the Champions League; Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)
