By David Butler
Last week’s Europa cup final was plagued with criticism of low quality. Having watched the final, it was clear that Tottenham vs Manchester United was no classic.
Interestingly, UEFA have actively sought to downgrade the quality of one of their competitions - the new Europa Cup format does not allow teams to transfer from the Champions League to the Europa League knockout phase. In the past, this valve meant that the elite teams could still feature in the later stages of the Europa Cup if they finished 3rd in their Champions League group.
This is borne out in the average ELO ranking of quarter finalist clubs over the last ten years. For 9 of the last 10 seasons the average ELO rank of a quarter finalist was higher than this season (in 16-17 it was just below this season). Last season, the average ELO rank was 1827 for quarter finalist clubs. Under the new format, without the exit route from the Champions league, the average ranked dropped to 1731.
It is very often the case that some measure of ‘quality’ in football is statistically correlated with consumer demand – whether that be attendance or viewership via broadcast. With the likelihood that more relatively lower quality teams will reach the final rounds of the Europa cup competition in the years ahead it will be interesting to see if there is a fall off in the appetite to view. Perhaps the competition design will be tweaked to let clubs enter from the Champions league? UEFA may not always be as lucky as having two major international clubs in the final.
Last week’s Europa cup final was plagued with criticism of low quality. Having watched the final, it was clear that Tottenham vs Manchester United was no classic.
Interestingly, UEFA have actively sought to downgrade the quality of one of their competitions - the new Europa Cup format does not allow teams to transfer from the Champions League to the Europa League knockout phase. In the past, this valve meant that the elite teams could still feature in the later stages of the Europa Cup if they finished 3rd in their Champions League group.
This is borne out in the average ELO ranking of quarter finalist clubs over the last ten years. For 9 of the last 10 seasons the average ELO rank of a quarter finalist was higher than this season (in 16-17 it was just below this season). Last season, the average ELO rank was 1827 for quarter finalist clubs. Under the new format, without the exit route from the Champions league, the average ranked dropped to 1731.
It is very often the case that some measure of ‘quality’ in football is statistically correlated with consumer demand – whether that be attendance or viewership via broadcast. With the likelihood that more relatively lower quality teams will reach the final rounds of the Europa cup competition in the years ahead it will be interesting to see if there is a fall off in the appetite to view. Perhaps the competition design will be tweaked to let clubs enter from the Champions league? UEFA may not always be as lucky as having two major international clubs in the final.
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