Leeds chief Kinnear blasts UEFA over Champions League plans

Leeds United chief, Angus Kinnear has slammed UEFA’s plans to revamp the Champions League.

UEFA have proposed a 36-team Champions League under a new ‘Swiss format’, which would scrap a traditional group stage in favour of an overall league table with clubs facing seeded fixtures.

Writing in his programme notes for the Whites’ draw with Chelsea on Saturday, Kinnear branded the plans deeply troubling.

He said: “However, UEFA’s plans to expand the competition with the doubling of matches under the enticingly branded ‘Swiss format’ is deeply concerning on a number of levels.

“Primarily, I have serious doubts over whether the increase in games is actually what supporters want.

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“I find it hard to believe that Spurs fans are clamouring for an away tie at Lokomotiv Plovdiv to be an annual fixture.

“Furthermore the expansion will undoubtedly cannibalise the value that we can generate from our domestic competition that the rest of Europe eye so enviously but the element that the supporters of the majority of Premier League clubs should be most outraged by is the principle that qualification for Europe will no longer be only based on in-season merit but on a co-efficient of clubs’ historic performance in Europe.

“This is shamelessly engineered to perpetuate the inclusion of clubs who have long-term European success and whom UEFA deem will have greater commercial value at the expense of emerging clubs.”