The recently-announced changes to the
Champions League are detrimental to domestic football in Europe and will increase the gap between the wealthiest clubs and the rest, Europe's domestic football leagues (EPFL) said on Thursday.
The EPFL, the umbrella grouping for 24 European domestic leagues, also called upon the next Uefa president to reconsider the changes which made fewer places available in the Champions League group stage to teams from smaller countries.
It was the first major criticism of the reforms of the lucrative competition, which were announced in Monaco in August after secretive negotiations between European football body Uefa and the clubs.
Uefa rearranged the group-stage slots in favour of its four top-ranked leagues, in effect Spain, England, Germany and Italy, by guaranteeing them four places each.
Places for the winners of the 11th and 12th ranked leagues were cut and the number of places reserved for teams from the remaining leagues, who play their way through a qualifying competition, was reduced from five to four.
Uefa also announced changes in the distribution of revenue with more emphasis placed on the historic sporting results of the clubs and less on the value of their television market.
The changes came amid reports that the biggest clubs had been discussing the creation of a so-called Super League.
